On Aug. 9, 2021, health authorities in Guinea confirmed a case of Marburg virus disease in the southern Gueckedou prefecture. This was the first time Marburg, a highly infectious disease that causes haemorrhagic fever, had been identified in the country, and in West Africa.

Marburg, which is in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola, was detected less than two months after Guinea declared an end to an Ebola outbreak that erupted earlier this year.