New outbreaks of the viral haemorrhagic fevers Marburg and Ebola, along with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, are testing the limits of West Africa’s inadequate health systems.

The fresh outbreaks have doubled the number of challenges for the governments already caught up in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, told a news conference on Thursday.

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Ebola marked a return in the commercial capital Abidjan of Ivory Coast for the first time since 1994, which led the government to begin vaccinating health workers against the virus disease. 

Meanwhile, health authorities in Guinea confirmed one death from Marburg, which is similar to Ebola.

The discovery came just two months after the WHO declared an end to Guinea’s second outbreak of Ebola, which started last year and killed 12 people. 

The Marburg virus is passed on from animal hosts to humans and has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent, claims the WHO. 

The symptoms of the disease include, high fever, severe headache and discomfort.

The Marburg virus is usually associated with exposure to caves or mines housing colonies of Rousettus bats. Once caught by a human, it is spread through contact with bodily fluids of infected people, or with contaminated surfaces and materials, according to the WHO.

Health systems in West Africa in particular are weaker than other parts of the continent when the continent faces more infectious disease outbreaks every year than any other region, according to  Moeti.

Adding to the fresh outbreaks, the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu near the commercial capital of Abidjan in Ivory Coast has also been reported, which the government says is being looked after.

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WHO data also shows that West Africa in the past month recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began, and cases are surging in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Nigeria – all three of which have recently been hit with other outbreaks.