Infectious Disease Response in Tanzania: Enhanced Strategies From the 2023 to 2025 Marburg Outbreaks

The 2023 Marburg virus disease (MVD) outbreak in Tanzania, which resulted in nine confirmed cases and six deaths (case fatality rate [CFR]: 66.7%), served as a critical stress test of the national health system, revealing significant gaps in outbreak preparedness across surveillance, laboratory capacity, and infection prevention and control (IPC). This narrative review examines how Tanzania's public health response evolved between the 2023 and subsequent 2025 outbreak and assesses how response strategies changed between the two outbreaks. The 2025 outbreak was limited to two confirmed cases with no further transmission, a marked contrast to the 2023 outbreak. Between the two outbreaks, Tanzania implemented several critical interventions, including expansions of PCR diagnostic capacity, integration of electronic tracing modules, and public health communication strategies. This review synthesizes publicly available reports from the World Health Organization (WHO), Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, and peer-reviewed literature, and analysis focuses on three major response domains: infectious disease surveillance, IPC, and public health education as key factors associated with Tanzania's progress. The rapid containment of the 2025 outbreak suggests meaningful progress in Tanzania's public health capabilities and the need for continued, sustained investment in integrated surveillance systems and IPC infrastructure to maintain resilience against future outbreaks. Tanzania's adaptation and multi-level interventions between 2023 and 2025 provide a model for regional health security in Africa.