Major operation at the central station Marburg virus suspected in Hamburg

A possible case of the Marburg virus is keeping the authorities in the German port city of Hamburg busy. Just how seriously the matter is being taken can be seen at the main railway station. And later also at a hospital.

This article was last comprehensively updated at 21:06.

Two people are being medically examined in Hamburg on suspicion of being infected with the life-threatening Marburg virus. According to the Hamburg social welfare authorities, one of the two people had recently worked in a hospital in Rwanda, where people infected with the virus had been treated.

The Marburg virus can cause high fever and symptoms such as muscle pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and bloody vomiting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 24 to 88 percent of those infected have died in previous outbreaks.

According to the US health authority CDC, there has not been an outbreak of the disease in Germany since 1967. The pathogen bears the name of the German city because laboratory employees there were infected with the previously unknown virus in experimental monkeys in 1967.

People become infected through direct contact with the body fluids of infected persons, such as blood, and not through the air. The incubation period is 2 to 21 days. According to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), one of the reservoirs and a carrier of the Marburg virus is the Nile flying fox.

From Rwanda via Frankfurt to Hamburg

According to the authorities, the two people now being treated in Hamburg had flown from Rwanda to Frankfurt on Wednesday night and then taken a train to the Hanseatic city. During the journey, one of the two contacted doctors in Hamburg because he was worried that he had contracted a tropical disease in Rwanda. According to media reports, the man was a medical student in his mid-20s.

The man had flu-like symptoms and was slightly nauseous, a fire department spokesman said. He did not have a fever.

The Hamburg health authority then decided to isolate both people immediately at the main station and take them to a special unit at the University Medical Center Eppendorf (UKE) for further examination. All medically necessary examinations were started there immediately. As a rule, a large number of illnesses can be diagnosed within 24 hours.

As a precautionary measure, the contact details of train passengers who may have had contact with the two were recorded. Quarantine measures are currently not necessary, the authorities announced. According to Deutsche Bahn, an average of 275 passengers were on the train.

Outbreak in Rwanda

Marburg fever had only recently broken out in Rwanda. So far, ten patients have died from the viral disease, reported Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana on Platform X. A total of 29 cases were confirmed on October 1. The 19 patients currently being treated are mainly medical staff and are in isolation.

Maximilian Gertler, a tropical medicine specialist at Charité in Berlin, is not surprised that it is mainly healthcare workers who have fallen ill in Rwanda. "The perfidious thing about the infection is that it starts so unspecifically, with banal symptoms that could also be malaria or a flu-like infection," says the doctor, who has also worked for an aid organization during an Ebola outbreak. "With all these things, you're always tempted to quickly draw blood as a nurse or doctor in the emergency room." There is a risk of transmitting the virus.

dpa