How deadly eye-bleeding 'Marburg virus' could reach the UK in weeks

Marburg virus, which kills up to 9 in 10 people it infects through horrific bleeding from the orifices, could soon reach Britain, infectious disease experts have warned.

The risk lies with the 'silent' incubation period that can last up to a month — meaning patients may be infected but not know it, and potentially pass it to others. 

Those in this stage of the infection could easily embark on a plane to the UK and fall ill after they arrive, experts have said.

Professor Paul Hunter, a renowned infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia, said international travel links meant Marburg virus could easily be imported to countries like the UK from Rwanda, the heart of the current outbreak.

'The incubation period is between five and 15 days, plenty long enough for someone to get on a plane and fly anywhere in the world,' he said

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Rwanda as of 'great concern', adding there is high risk of the outbreak spreading to other countries.

However, Professor Hunter said even if the virus reaches the UK it would be unlikely to spread unchecked due to access to better infection control procedures and highly trained British staff and well-equipped facilities that deal with such diseases. 

He also told MailOnline that patients only become highly infectious in the latter more serious stages of the disease when they bleed from their orifices. 

Professor Hunter added that any British outbreaks, should they occur will likely be limited to households where people are in close proximity.  

People infected with Marburg virus typically experience flu-like symptoms between three to 10 days after exposure to the pathogen, though cases of up to four weeks have been reported.

Five to seven days after this patients progress to suffering a haemorrhagic fever that causes bleeding from the orifices and has given Marburg virus its 'eye-bleeding' name. 

It's this bleeding, caused by the virus damaging the body's organs, which makes the pathogen one of the deadliest known to man, with 88 per cent of patients dying in some outbreaks.

However, Professor Hunter has stressed that fatality rates from African outbreaks of the virus are unlikely to be as high in Europe due to better access to healthcare. 

But even at the lower end of estimates the virus still kills about half of those it infects. 

For comparison, Covid had killed only about 3 per cent of those it infected when it initially burst onto the scene. 

In Rwanda, where an outbreak was declared just last week, the virus has already infected at least 36 people, killing 11, with over 400 more thought to be at risk of exposure.

The majority of fatalities are in healthcare workers exposed to the ill during the initial stages of the outbreak, Rwandan officials have said. 

Fears the virus had already reached Europe were sparked yesterday after two passengers on a train at Hamburg Station in Germany fell ill with suspected Marburg virus.

One of the pair in question was a medical medical student who had recently arrived back from Rwanda.

However, local media reports the pair have now tested negative for the virus though they will still be monitored for the next 21 days as a precaution. 

There were also reports that another Marburg case had been detected in Belgium.

Authorities have since clarified that a person thought to be at risk was asked to quarantine but has since passed the incubation period without becoming ill. 

Marburg virus is initially spread from bats, which naturally host the virus, to people.

Exposure typically occurs in mines or caves people work in, though the source of the Rwandan outbreak has not yet been determined.

From there initial cases can go on to infect other people with the virus spreading through contaminated bodily fluids, including those left on clothes and bedding. 

Sexual transmission of the virus can also occur, with research suggesting it can remain viable in semen even for up to 7 weeks after a patient recovers.  

Even the bodies of the dead can still transmit the infection.

UK health chiefs are currently demanded that businesses provide extra monitoring of employees who have or are visiting Rwanda.

They have also issued a warning to British travellers to Rwanda, which has direct flights between its capital Kiglai, where the majority of cases have been recorded and UK airports. 

There are currently no vaccines or treatments available for Marburg virus, meaning medics instead focus on helping patients survive the infection.

However, a number of potential jabs are currently being trialled including in the UK.

Rwanda is poised to start using some of these experimental jabs and drugs as part of clinical trials during the ongoing outbreak.

A similar policy of using in development vaccines and medicines has been used in previous Ebola outbreaks in a bid to help save lives of those with direct exposure to known cases. 

Rwanda's assistant health minister, Yvan Butera, said his country was preparing to dish out such products to its populace but without giving details of exactly what will be tested. 

'About to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials to protect high-risk groups,' he wrote on social media. 

In terms of cases the Rwandan outbreak is approaching the scale of the 2023 one in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania in which 49 people were infected, of which 41 died, and which was larges tin over a decade.

However it pales in comparison to the 2004-5 Angolan Marburg virus outbreak, the biggest on record, with 374 recorded cases of which 329 were fatal.

The Angolan outbreak was considered to be exacerbated by civil unrest in the country at the time. 

WHO officials have said they are currently advising against any travel and trade restrictions being imposed against Rwanda during the ongoing virus outbreak. 

Previous outbreaks have seen cases of Marburg virus crop up in places like the Netherlands and the US in travellers from affected countries.

However, no such cases have ever occurred in the UK, though experts say it is possible. 

Most outbreaks of Marburg virus fizzle out after infecting a few people. For this reason, experts say the chances of it sparking a pandemic aren't high. 

Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967 when outbreaks of haemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia).

Infections were eventually traced back to three laboratories that received a shared shipment of infected African green monkeys for research.

Previous outbreaks have been spotted in Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Cameroon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.