Is Marburg virus a deadly new virus coming from Africa? No, that's not true: It was first recognized in 1967, in Germany.
The story appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published by @user8673937752784 on Tiktok on 16 Apr 2023, under the title "#인간#바이러스#마버그#좀비#CapCut" (#Human#Virus#Marburg#Zombie#Capcut: translated by Lead Stories Staff). It opened:
COVID: I gotta go now. Before leave, I will bring a friend first.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Apr 27 05:28:12 2023 UTC)
The video implies that the Marburg virus is a new threat to humankind similar to COVID-19. Even though the virus causes severe hemorrhagic fever, it was first recognized in 1967 and is definitely not a "new" threat. There have been a total of 10 historical outbreak of Marburg virus, and none of those resulted in a global pandemic. Most Marburg outbreaks have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, while only a few outbreaks have occurred outside the continent.
There was a simliar video (archived here) that exaggerates the threat; it says Marburg has an 88% fatality rate. The 88% of fatality rate is not derived from a massive dataset, the number is derived from the current outbreak in Equatorial Guinea. The government of the state said the outbreak recorded 88% of fataility rate in Feb 13. However, the number has slightly dropped to 78%, according to the renewed number as of March 2022. Moreover, the case-fatality rates from the historical outbreaks varied between 23% to 90%.
