Due to a fatal Marburg virus outbreak in Tanzania’s neighbour, Uganda has instructed health officials to increase screening along that country’s border. . Tanzania reported on Tuesday that five individuals had passed away as a result of getting marburg virus. Henry Mwebesa, director general of health services in Uganda, gave officials instructions to be “on the lookout” for the disease. This was seen in a letter that was issued to all district health officers on Wednesday and obtained by AFP.

He instructed officials to “start screening all in-bound passengers at points of entry” for symptoms. However, he asked them to follow his instructions “with immediate effect” in all districts that border Tanzania. The Tanzanian health ministry announced on Tuesday that there are 161 contacts being tracked by the authorities. The ministry urged people to maintain calm. Tanzania this week dispatched a fast response team to its bordering Uganda district of Kagera in the northwestern part of the country. There work was to investigate a suspicious ailment that was subsequently determined to be Marburg hemorrhagic fever.

The last Marburg outbreak in Uganda, which has a flimsy border with Tanzania, occurred in 2017. The country of East Africa has just recovered from an Ebola outbreak that lasted nearly four months. It claimed 55 lives before Kampala declared it to be over in January. The African fruit bat, which carries the virus but is unaffected by it, is thought to be the Marburg virus’s presumed natural source. The virus was initially discovered at a facility in the German city of Marburg in 1967. This is after researchers had come into contact with sick green monkeys brought in from Uganda.