Rwanda is poised to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials to treat Marburg disease, Yvan Butera, the assistant health minister, said on Thursday, as the African nation battles its first outbreak of the viral fever that has killed 11.

The disease was first confirmed late in September, with 36 cases reported so far, health ministry data shows.

"About to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials to protect high-risk groups," Butera said on X, without giving details of the drug to be tested.

The ministry was monitoring 410 people who had made contact with those infected, he added, while five more had tested negative, but awaited the results of further tests.

A viral hemorrhagic fever, Marburg disease has symptoms from severe headache to vomiting, muscle and stomach ache, and can kill some patients, the ministry has said.

With a fatality rate as high as 88%, it belongs to the same virus family as that responsible for Ebola, and is transmitted to humans by fruit bats, before spreading through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.

Neighbouring Tanzania had cases of Marburg in 2023, as did Uganda in 2017.