Marburg virus is named after the town in Germany where it first emerged. In 1967, there were simultaneous outbreaks at laboratories in Marburg and Belgrade in Serbia (then part of Yugoslavia). The outbreak was caused by African green monkeys imported from Uganda for use in experiments. Seven people died.

Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss. In Rwanda, most of the sick are health workers in six out of the country’s 30 districts.

German police cordoned off part of a train station in Hamburg and isolated two people to reduce the risk of the deadly Marburg virus spreading.

Two passengers with suspected cases of Marburg virus in Germany have tested negative for the highly contagious disease. The travellers – returning from Rwanda to Hamburg via Frankfurt – were taken for examination at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) on Wednesday (2 October).

Marburg virus disease has killed 11 people and sickened 25 others in Rwanda, which declared an outbreak on Sept. 27.

Health officials in Rwanda are dealing with the country’s first outbreak of the Marburg virus, an Ebola-like disease which, if left untreated, has a fatality rate of up to 88%.

Rwanda declared an outbreak of the highly contagious Marburg virus​, a deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorized vaccine or treatment.

Two people recently returned to Germany from Rwanda who feared they had contracted the deadly Marburg virus have tested negative, health officials in Hamburg said Thursday.

Amid reports of a deadly viral outbreak in Central Africa, researchers are reportedly scrambling to develop treatments and vaccines to combat Marburg virus.

There are no treatments or vaccines approved for Marburg, a virus in the same family as Ebola with a fatality rate between 24% to 88%.

The Marburg virus disease, which is similar to Ebola, has killed hundreds of people in recent years, mostly in African nations. It is fatal for about half the people it infects according to data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).