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.

Tanzania has pushed back against a report from the World Health Organization warning of a new Marburg virus outbreak in the country.

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - 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.

Nine cases of the deadly disease have been reported in the Kagera region of Tanzania so far. But officials expect that number to rise.

Tanzanian authorities deny Marburg virus presence after WHO reports deaths, with laboratory tests returning negative.

The World Health Organization says an outbreak of suspected Marburg disease has killed eight people in a remote part of northern Tanzania

A suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus in northwest Tanzania has infected nine people, killing eight of them, the World Health Organization has said, weeks after an outbreak of the disease was declared over in neighbouring Rwanda.

With the fatality rate of 8% it is the same virus family as Ebola. The main carrier is from fruit bats which spreads to humans then through the contact of bodily fluids of infected individuals, it spreads to others.