The Marburg virus is related to Ebola. These two viruses have similar serious but rare clinical pictures. 

The virus has an incubation period of three to nine days, whereupon the infected person rapidly becomes seriously ill, exhibiting symptoms including a high fever, muscular cramps and headache. Later vomiting, diarrhoea and skin rashes develop. The patients condition deteriorates and jaundice, confusion and haemorrhaging occurs, in the form of nosebleeds, vomiting blood and blood in the faeces. 
If proper health care is given, 25% of all cases diagnosed prove fatal. In Africa the death rate however is 90%.  

The virus can only be transmitted via direct contact with a seriously ill patient's bodily fluids. Experience has shown that the illness is contracted by carers and nursing staff only. 
Airborne infection with the illness, as is the case with influenza, is not possible. It is therefore impossible to contract the illness from outwardly healthy persons during operations such as loading and unloading. 

The Marburg virus appears predominantly in African regions: Uganda and the western part of Kenya. 
An epidemic broke out in Angola in April in 2004 and 2005. The epicentre of the outbreak was the provincial town of Uige.
On 7 November 2005, the Ministry of Health of the Angolan Republic announced that the Marburg epidemic was over. 

Seafarers calling at ports in Angola were not exposed to a health risk, as the illness was not present in the coastal region.