HHS/CDC Scientists and African Partners Find Proof of Marburg Virus in Fruit Bats

August 22, 2007 – An international collaboration of scientists, including Jonathan S. Towner of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), demonstrated the presence of Marburg virus RNA genome and antibodies in a common species of African fruit bat. Towner was the lead author of the article published yesterday in the open-access scientific journal PLoS ONE that presented the findings of the study. This study provides new insight into a disease that has baffled epidemiologists, ecologists and virologists.

“From a public health perspective, this discovery offers us new insight into the transmission of Marburg virus and potentially other filoviruses,” said Dr. Towner, senior microbiologist at HHS/CDC.

Marburg hemorrhagic fever is a rare, severe type of hemorrhagic fever which affects both humans and non-human primates. It is in the same filovirus family as the four species of Ebola virus. Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). A total of 37 people became ill; the first people infected had been exposed to African green monkeys or their tissues. Recorded cases of the disease are rare, and have appeared in only a few locations. As with Ebola virus, the actual animal host for Marburg virus remains a mystery. Also, while the virus is indigenous to Africa, its native geographic area is not known.

In their study, the team of scientists that found evidence of the presence of the Marburg virus report on the testing of bats collected from Gabon and Republic of Congo.

For more information:

• Marburg Virus Infection Detected in a Common African Bat (Public Library of Science ONE) 

Last revised: December 14, 2007