Genetically distinct, deadly virus discovered in Bolivia
A "genetically distinct" virus that causes bleeding and shock has killed at least one man in a remote part of Bolivia. The highly deadly organism appears to be carried by rodents, according to a report released in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens.
They have named the new virus the Chapare arenavirus, and say it is related to the viruses that cause Lassa fever and other rare viruses such as Junin, Machupo, Guanarito, and Sabia viruses. They have about a 30 percent fatality rate. But it is genetically distinct.Link to Reuters item, and here's the original report in PLoS. Image: "Map of Bolivia showing location of the Chapare virus-associated HF case relative to the Beni region where Machupo virus-associated HF cases originate." (thanks, Mike Outmesguine)"It is quite a unique virus and we are suggesting that it be considered as a new species of arenavirus," Stuart Nichol of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped study the virus, said in a telephone interview.
The 22-year-old man was one of several who died of hemorrhagic fever near Cochabamba, Bolivia. A team of Bolivian health authorities and U.S. Navy health experts from Lima, Peru, got the samples.
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It's about time someone posted a piece of news like this. I was almost feeling safe for a minute there...
On a similar note, when will we declare war on one of these countries? You know, the War on Viruses. Viruses hate freedom.
The "good" news about most hemorrhagic fever viruses (hanta, ebola, marburg) is that while they spread very easily, they have such a short incubation period that they tend to "burn themselves out" as they kill too quickly to spread efficiently through the greater population.
It is indeed an irony that in order to become a major threat to major population centers, a virus would need to adapt to become "less deadly", so it has a chance to spread before its hosts die. Like SARS or avian flu, for example.
Another item for my list of 'Seemingly Rational Excuses For My Fear of Rodents'.
Well, if no one else is going to say it, I will:
The Beni hills virus.
mmmmm, all the best symptoms, fever, bleeding, headache, bleeding, diarrhea, bleeding, bleeding, feverous bleeding and bleeding.....
Thank heaven the virus is genetically distinct!
Can you imagine the horror of a genetically indistinct one?
"It is quite a unique virus..."
Unique is an absolute term that takes no modifiers. If something is unique, it's unique, not quite unique, very unique, absolutely unique, or somewhat unique. One unique thing cannot be more or less unique than another unique thing. There is no most or least unique.
I'm done soapboxing now. Thanks for your indulgence.
uniquitudinous? crommulently I mean
In the spirit of truthiness, I think that almost, or quasi-, or nearly perfect would work for me, in this day and age.
I have the feeling that this particular virus falls within the general parameters of bugs we've seen before, but with statistically, and/or genetically important variance.
I hope it gets the Beni hills name though. He deserves a proper legacy, even one carried by rodent feces. Perhaps we could start a 'net rumor that and appropriate prophylaxis involves drooling over tits or slapping an old guy's bald head.
I need another drink.
oh good. some US Navy 'health experts are on hand in land-locked Bolivia. This shit writes itself. I suppose we'll find out next it's got a long incubation period and is airborne?
no problem
http://www.militarypictures.info/missiles/US_Blu-82_FAE.jpg.html
why not go straight to the neutron bombs? leave the buildings intact at least.
" and then the lamb........opened the third seal, and i saw the third horse.........the horseman was the pest." - aphrodite's child. i dunno, just seemed appropriate.
"This shit writes itself."
Tt has indeed been written; The Boy In Zaquitos by Bruce McAllister. It's about a CIA operative who is a 'Chronic asymptomatic Carrier" of the plague. As MKULTRA pointed out, viruses need to be able to produce such carriers in order to be very successful. The CIA used their 'CAC' (the goberment loves them some acronyms) as a sort of Guided Missile version of Typhoyd Mary. I don't this happens to be the case here, but it's not such a stretch of the imagination to assume that our government has done such a thing in the past.
"The highly deadly organism..."
I hope I don't seem quite the pedant as FARMFOODIE, but I would like to note that Viruses are generally not considered organisms. A virus is little more than a bit of DNA housed in a coat of protien. No cells, no independant reproduction, no metabolization, etcetera...
The plague however, which is also carried by rodents can be refered to as an organism becuase it is a bacterial disease.
Actually, this virus (or at least Machupo "Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever") is covered in chapter 1 of Laurie Garrett's "The Coming Plague" (copyright 1994). It is spread by rat urine.