Tanzania’s president said Monday that one sample from a remote part of northern Tanzania tested positive for Marburg disease, a highly infectious virus which can be fatal in up to 88% of cases without treatment.

Tanzania’s president says one sample from a remote northern part of the country has tested positive for Marburg disease.

Tanzania's president Samia Suluhu Hassan has confirmed a case of Marburg virus disease in a remote part of the country. It comes after the health minister rejected that there were any cases in the country.

Tanzania's government said no-one in the country had tested positive for the Marburg virus after the World Health Organization (WHO) said at least eight people in the northwest were believed to have died from it.

The Ministry of Health has enhanced surveillance and screenings in all points of entry to the country following reports of a Marburg virus outbreak in Tanzania. Last week, the World Health Organisation announced a suspected Marburg virus outbreak which has affected part of the neighbouring country. Tanzania has, however, dismissed the report.

Tanzania has dismissed a World Health Organisation (WHO) report of a suspected new outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus in the north-west of the country. On Tuesday, the global health agency said a total of nine suspected cases were reported over the last five days in the Kagera region, including eight deaths.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets

Tanzania has confirmed an outbreak of Marburg virus disease in the northwestern Kagera region after one case tested positive for the virus following investigations and laboratory analysis of suspected cases.

Tanzania's president has announced an outbreak of Marburg virus, an Ebola-like virus, just a week after her health minister denied that there were any cases in the country. President Samia Suluhu Hassan said at a press conference on Monday that health authorities had confirmed one case of Marburg in the north-western region of Kagera.

Officials previously questioned whether the deadly disease was indeed present in the African country, which had seen 8 suspected Marburg deaths.