Marburg Virus

Marburg virus is a hemorrhagic fever virus of the Filoviridae family of viruses and a member of the species Marburg marburgvirus, genus Marburgvirus. Marburg virus (MARV) causes Marburg virus disease in humans and nonhuman primates, a form of viral hemorrhagic fever. The virus is considered to be extremely dangerous. The WHO rates it as a Risk Group 4 Pathogen (requiring biosafety level 4-equivalent containment). Like all mononegaviruses, marburgvirions contain non-infectious, linear nonsegmented, single-stranded RNA genomes of negative polarity that possess inverse-complementary 3' and 5' termini, do not possess a 5' cap, are not polyadenylated, and are not covalently linked to a protein. Marburg virus was first described in 1967. It was noticed during small outbreaks in the German cities Marburg and Frankfurt and the Yugoslav capital Belgrade in the 1960s. German workers were exposed to tissues of infected grivet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) at the city's former main industrial plant, the Behringwerke, then part of Hoechst, and today of CSL Behring. During these outbreaks, 31 people became infected and seven of them died. body{zoom:75%!important;}