Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, has recommended handwashing as a good intervention in the containment of the Marburg virus outbreak in Ghana.
According to him, due to the high fatality rate of the virus, it will be prudent for the public to refrain from direct contact with persons and animals.
“So, there’s one cost-effective action, that’s handwashing. It cuts across whether it’s influenza or Marburg. So, I think that this issue about handwashing, particularly with soap under running water is a very good intervention. If you look at this Marburg, it’s about contact [and] you know we stopped shaking hands when we had this COVID and I think that now we have started and we have to go back and stop because it’s about direct contact.”
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
Dr Asiedu Bekoe noted that for a disease like Marburg, “hugging and shaking of hands” are the things that should not be encouraged. In a bid to contain the spread of the virus, he advised the public to link the COVID response actions to Marburg, influenza and monkeypox because they are the same.
“I think one thing that is a bit different between Marburg and COVID is that, for COVID, the person who is asymptomatic can spread the infection but this one you need to be symptomatic. So, that’s how come the rate of transmission is a bit minimal but the issue is avoid contact. It’s very important for us to stress on it.”
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
Containment of Marburg virus
The Director of public health for the GHS highlighted that since the exact source of the outbreak of Marburg is not known, sources such as human and animal contact should be probed. With this, he emphasized the need for the public to avoid the “common reservoir [which] is the fruit-eating bats”.
“… So, how do we avoid this one? It’s not just the eating, it’s the handling because before you can chew a bat, you have to kill it and it involves getting in touch with the secretions and blood…”
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
Dr Asiedu-Bekoe further expressed the need for the public to be mindful of the burial of their dead relations. He revealed that this poses a threat and it’s a “big bane in our system” as it has its own religious issues.
“People die and we are not sure of the cause of death and within a matter of hours, you’re suppose to bury and there a lot of exposures that come. For this era we are in, I think that burial will be given a different dimension [and] we are not going to allow people to be burying people within 24 hours… When your relative is dead, we are going to have challenges releasing the bodies to you as early as possible.”
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
For this outbreak, Dr Asiedu-Bekoe indicated that it’s early days yet and for now, it’s being managed as a kind of “localised outbreak” which focuses on the containment of the virus at source.
“So, if you look at the interventions, people are complaining they are not hearing of it in Accra. So, the focus is to manage it at the source so it doesn’t get nationwide.”
Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe
