Health Ministry Spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said on Sunday that the ministry had taken a number of preemptive measures at all air, sea and land ports to detect any Marburg virus case especially among passengers coming from Equatorial Guinea.
In statements to ON TV satellite channel, he added that the virus spreads among humans through human-to-human transmission and not through air.
He noted that the virus has the capacity to cause outbreaks with high fatality rates but not widely-spread like Covid-19.
Marburg virus is a hemorrhagic fever virus that is considered to be extremely dangerous. The World Health Organization (WHO) rates it as a Risk Group 4 Pathogen.
The virus can be transmitted by exposure to one species of fruit bats or it can be transmitted between people via body fluids through unprotected sex and broken skin. The disease can cause haemorrhage, fever, and other symptoms similar to Ebola, which belongs to the same family of viruses.
Source: State Information Service Egypt