Marburg virus disease: epidemiology, clinical features, and prevention

  Objective  To summarize and analyze the epidemic characteristics, clinical manifestations, laboratory testing, prevention and control measures of Marburg virus disease.

  Methods  The epidemic situation of Marburg virus disease was collected from PubMed database, Bing academic collection and information released by the World Health Organization. The complete sequence of virus genome with clear isolation time and region was screened, and the phylogenetic analysis was carried out to analyze the etiological characteristics.

  Results  Marburg virus is one of the most lethal pathogens to human beings, and the areas threatened by Marburg virus are expanding. The understanding of the epidemic characteristics of Marburg virus mainly comes from three large-scale outbreaks. The genetic evolution of the virus has high stability. The difference between the two main clades is about 20%, and the difference of virus genome sequence within the clade is about 7%. However, the abundance and diversity of simultaneously circulating strains in natural hosts such as bats pose a challenge to nucleic acid based molecular diagnosis.

  Conclusion  The epidemic situation and threaten of Marburg virus disease are underestimated, which should arouse attention to the scientific research of specific prevention and treatment measures.