Marburg Virus Disease e-bog

In the late summer of 1967, several patients suffering from a severe disease were admitted to the Department of Medicine of the Marburg University. It soon became obvious that the illness was a hitherto unknown infectious disease. The number of afflicted patients increased to 23. Several cases were observed in Frankfurt/Main at the same time and, some weeks later also in Belgrade, Yugo- slavia. Common to all the patients was previous contact with the blood or tissues of Cercopithecus aethiops, the vervet monkey. Altogether 31 people became ill and 7 died. It was soon apparent that the infectious agent was neither bacterial nor rickettsial in origin but that a viral etiology was probable. Most of the known viral diseases were excluded and the infectious agent was shown to be a hitherto unknown virus with many peculiar characteristics: it infects guinea pigs but not adult mice and is larger than known viruses and of different shape. This agent was called the "e;Marburg virus"e; since most of the cases had occurred in Marburg and the greater part of the laboratory work leading to the detection of the virus was performed in Marburg.