A person in Spain who was initially suspected of getting the deadly Marburg disease tested negative on Saturday and doesn’t have the virus, the Health Ministry said.
Health authorities in Valencia earlier said they’d detected the country’s first suspected case of the infectious disease that has led to the quarantining of greater than 200 people in Equatorial Guinea.
The 34-year-old man, who had recently been in Equatorial Guinea, had since been given the all-clear but can be tested again in the approaching weeks, officials said.
He had been transferred from a personal hospital to an isolation unit on the Hospital La Fe in Valencia while tests were carried out, the Valencian regional health authorities said.
Three health staff who’re treating the person were also isolated as a precautionary measure, authorities said.
Marburg virus can have a fatality rate of as much as 88 per cent, in keeping with the World Health Organization. There aren’t any vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat it.
Equatorial Guinea quarantined greater than 200 people and restricted movement on Feb. 13 in its Kie-Ntem province, where the hemorrhagic fever was first detected.
There is a race to contain an outbreak of Marburg disease — attributable to an Ebola-related virus — in Equatorial Guinea, where at the least nine people have died. There is not any cure for the deadly disease and development of a vaccine was paused years ago.
The small Central African country has thus far reported nine deaths in addition to 16 suspected cases of the disease, with symptoms including fever, fatigue, blood-stained vomit and diarrhea, in keeping with WHO.
Cameroonian authorities detected two suspected cases of Marburg disease on Feb. 13 in Olamze, a commune on the border with Equatorial Guinea, the general public health delegate for the region, Robert Mathurin Bidjang, said on Feb. 14.
Cameroon had restricted movement along the border to attempt to avoid contagion.