The number of fatalities in the country has risen to three since Ghana registered its first-ever Marburg virus outbreak last month.
A child who contracted the highly contagious Ebola-like Marburg virus in Ghana has died, according to a World Health Organization official.
The 14-month-old’s father was the first person to have died in the country,
The baby’s mother, meanwhile, has tested positive for the virus but is “alive and well” according to a BBC news report sourced from the Ghana government which says the mother is receiving care in an isolation center to prevent further spread of the illness.
Another patient thought to have died of Marburg was later confirmed negative, after post-mortem tests revealed the 51-year-old man did not in fact have the disease, the report further stated.
The death on Tuesday brings the total number of fatalities in Ghana to three since the disease’s first-ever outbreak last month. The outbreak is only the second in West Africa, with the first being discovered in Guinea last year.
The deceased child, whose gender was not revealed, was one of two new cases reported by the WHO last week.
“I mentioned the two additional cases last week. “One is the index case’s wife, and the other is the index case’s child, and the child unfortunately died, but the wife is still alive and improving,” WHO doctor Ibrahima Soce Fall told reporters.
According to the WHO, the virus is transmitted to humans by fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with bodily fluids, surfaces, and materials.
So far, the Ghanaian health ministry has only reported three confirmed cases, with a fourth suspected case still awaiting testing, according to Fall.
The first two cases, both in southern Ghana’s Ashanti region, had symptoms such as diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting before dying in hospital, according to the WHO.
