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Frederick A. Murphy / CDC handout via EPA file
A new virus that appears similar to rabies, but has the symptoms and lethality of Ebola, shown here, has been dubbed the Bas-Congo virus. It killed two teenagers in the Congo in 2009.
A virus that killed two teenagers in Congo in 2009 is a completely new type, related to rabies but causing the bleeding and rapid death that makes Ebola infection so terrifying, scientists reported on Thursday. They’re searching for the source of the virus, which may be transmitted by insects or bats.
The new virus is being named Bas-Congo virus, for the area where it was found. Researchers are finding more and more of these new viruses, in part because new tests make it possible, but also in the hope of better understanding them so they can prevent pandemics of deadly disease.
The virus infected a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl in the same village in Congo in 2009. They didn’t stand a chance, says Joseph Fair of Metabiota, a company that investigates pathogens. Fair is in the Democratic Republic of Congo now, under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to help battle an ongoing Ebola outbreak.
“They expired within three days,” Fair said in a telephone interview. “It was a very rapid killer.”
A few days later a male nurse who cared for the two teenagers developed the same symptoms and survived. Samples from the lucky nurse have been tested and it turned out a completely new virus had infected him, Fair and other researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS pathogens.
The genetic sequences went to Dr. Charles Chiu, of the University of California, San Francisco.
“We were astounded that this patient had sequences in his blood from a completely unknown and unidentified virus,” Chiu said. They weren’t expecting that.
“Congo is very much known for having Ebola and Marburg outbreaks. Yet about 20 percent of the time we have hemorrhagic fever outbreaks that are completely negative, which means unknown causes and they are not Ebola.”
The sequencing puts this new virus on its own branch of the bad virus family tree -- somewhat related to Ebola and the virus that causes Lassa fever, another horrific killer, and most closely related to the rhabdoviruses. This family usually only infects animals with one notable exception -- rabies.
But rabies is not known to cause hemorrhaging. It’s plenty horrible on its own, of course, killing virtually all patients if they aren’t vaccinated soon after infection.
A nurse who took care of the first infected nurse had antibodies to the new virus. It doesn’t look like the teenagers infected one another, says Fair, but they probably infected the first nurse, who probably infected the second. Tests of other villagers have found no more evidence of the virus, however, which is good news.
“Although the source of the virus remains unclear, study findings suggest that Bas-Congo virus may be spread by human-to-human contact and is an emerging pathogen associated with acute hemorrhagic fever in Africa,” the researchers wrote.
Africa is loaded with nasty viruses. Lassa fever virus comes from a family known as arenaviruses and causes 500,000 cases of hemorrhagic fever a year. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and Rift Valley Fever viruses are in another family called bunyaviruses; Ebola and Marburg viruses are filoviruses that kill anywhere between 30 percent and 90 percent of victims. They’re also helping wipe out great apes such as gorillas in Central Africa. This adds a new one to the list.
It worries Chiu because its closest relative is spread by biting flies in Australia. “We think that is potentially a valuable clue. This virus may have come from an insect vector,” Chiu says. “What is scary about this virus is if it does happen to be spread by insects, it has the potential to be something like West Nile."
West Nile showed up in the United States for the first time in 1999, having never been seen here before. It causes regular outbreaks in Africa and parts of Europe, however, and some experts think a mosquito or an infected person carried it on a flight to New York. It’s killed 147 people in an especially bad U.S. outbreak this year, although more than 90 percent of people infected with West Nile never even know it.
New viruses often cause disease -- there was severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, which killed 800 people and infected 8,000 in 2003 before it was stopped. Scientists are now watching a similar virus that has emerged in the Middle east.
Chiu says there is not enough information to know how deadly the new Bas-Congo virus is.
“It has probably been lurking out there in remote areas and causing sporadic cases of hemorrhagic fever and no one had the resources to discover it,” Chiu said. “This is probably the tip of the iceberg. I believe there are many, many more of these emerging viruses that have yet to be discovered,” he added.
“This points to the importance of being vigilant, especially these remote areas of Africa and Asia. This is the area that I believe the next generation of emerging viruses will come from.”
Fair agrees, and says his team will be looking. They’ll also be checking to see if bats or insects can spread it. “It is a frightening prospect. That is why the next step in this process is to look for the vector,” Fair said.
That’s not so easy. Fair’s team and hundreds of other scientists have been looking for the reservoir -- the animal or insect source --of Ebola. That would be a bat or other creature that can carry it without getting sick itself. So far they have had no luck, although fruit bats are a major suspect.
And for the new Bas-Congo virus, the trail is now three years old. “Everything we do will be as a forensic investigation,” Fair said. “We really have to go look for a needle in a sack of needles.”
And in the meantime, there’s an outbreak of Ebola to cope with. Fair says a coordinated effort is going on, although this isn’t the worst outbreak he has seen. It’s killing about 30 percent to 40 percent of patients -- not nearly as bad as some strains, which killed up to 90 percent of victims.
“If you had to get Ebola, this is the strain to get,” he said.
Related stories:
- West Nile cases jump
- New virus related to SARS
- Rabid animals on the rise as human vaccine supply tightens
- Health teams face real-life horror in Ebola battle
- Ebola out of control in Congo, WHO says
Leave a Comment:
What is it with Africa and freaky deadly viruses?
Unfortunately, in the villages in Africa, it is so under devloped that the boundaries between the animals and humans are very little...most of these pathogens are coming from animals and crossing over into humans.
This also happened in China with SARS (transmitted farm animals) and Bird Flu.
It is always a good habit to keep clean and stay away from wild animals.
Stop worrying about humans ruining the earth. When it gets tired of us, it will take care of the problem it's own way.
My first thought. Why is it that Africa has all the deadly viruses? There are plenty of places(like South America) aside from Africa where animals and humans come into close contact so that isnt a likely reason.
Many of these virus' were restricted to a very small range, limited by the difficulty of movement in the undeveloped areas and the rapid lethality, all of which limited their range. Development and ease of transportation (cars, airplanes) have extended their range and body count.
Evolution happens everywhere, not just Africa. But today, richer populated western countries have better hygiene generally speaking.
Don't forget the black plague that wiped out large populations of China and Europe in the mid 12th century. Many people lived in squalling conditions back then, similar to many poor Africans today.
it really is only a matter of time before zombies start to run this ish. new diseases be popin' up all the time
Perfect. Now maybe skanks like madonna or angelina can go there and bring it back here. It'll probably flyer over on a plane before long anyway.
There is a hole, deep in the jungle in Congo, that goes straight to hell... vampire bats fly out of there, carrying these nasty diseases to remind people of the ugly realities of life...
Because Africa has other great apes (humans are a great ape) and because we're so closely related to them, we can catch their diseases.
@ UDunnoBro First off, Africa, as you may or may not know, has a GIGANTIC, diverse population of flora and fauna (plants and animals). Why? because the conditions there are absolutely lovely for living things to flourish into VERY MANY different forms.
Africa has the largest of almost every class and family of animals, for example, Elephants are the largest mammal. Elands are the largest antelope, Nile crocodiles are the largest reptiles, lions are the tallest in the cat family, but also, Africa has the smallest mammal in the world: The African Pygmy mouse.
Even among people, diversification is the highest among indigenous humans in Africa: for example, native Africans exhibit 30 different skin tones. More than any other populations indigenous to other parts of the world, except for the natives of Papua New Guinea, Australia, Phillipines and Indonesia.
As such it also follows that tiny OPPORTUNISTIC pathogens like viruses, fungi and bacteria, will also show up in very many different forms within Africa. When one is eradiated, another one pops up. The various climates in Africa, from the coast, to the highlands, to the savanna, to the semi-desert, to the hot desert, to the savanna, to the rainforest, to the woodlands afford a wide variety of environments for anything to live comfortably.
Africa too, is the second-largest continent, so there is A LOT OF ROOM that has never been covered, places where humans have never even been. And things people have never seen, like that weird TROLL creature that was captured in Namibia just this past August. Google it.
Secondly, it's not just AFrica that has a plethora of viruses. This article even mentions that. They exist everywhere humans live. For example, some diseases in North America are unheard of in Africa, like E.Coli.
The African viruses are child's play compared to our own diseases like the common cold, the flu and TB, which spread much more easily.
Any time you have a large group of animals or people living together in one area disease spreads. Why? Nature regulates itself, even disease has a purpose. It's to thin out the population to a smaller, more sustainable size. Yes Africa has a lot of wildlife but the needs of an elephant are far fewer than the needs of a person, and there are way more people over there than there are of large mammals of other species. And not all of Africa is beautiful, several countries are landlocked or desert terrain so dehydration and starvation are rampant. Even in countries where resources are available alot of times warlords and governments keep the citizens from accessing it. There's nothing the civilians can do about it.
The healthier people are more likely to survive than the sickly ones, I'm not saying this is right or ethical but the cold hard truth is that there are just too many people in Africa and not enough food/water/shelter/resources/common sense to sustain them all. Even in nature, the sickly animals will die off while the healthier, more well adapted ones survive. Barely keeping these people alive while they slowly die of aids, ebola, malaria, etc etc isn't really helping them because in the meantime they reproduce with just about no birth control being used so the population continues to explode while the resources go down.
It's a vicious cycle, bless these poor people in their suffering but honestly I don't know what anyone can do to save them? News like this comes from all over the world but it seems like Africa catches the brunt of it. It really is a cold cruel world!
I would speculate the reason that most new viruses come out of Africa has to do with the presence of several species of great apes. As that is the case it presents opportunities for viruses to jump from them to human. Additionally, it also presents an intermediary host for viruses which mutate to great apes and then mutate again to humans.
If you contrast that with say North America. There are no wild species anywhere close to us on the evolutionary tree. Therefore a virus has to get extremely lucky to be able to infect a human (think swine flu). Even in that case, the resultant virus was not very contagious at all.
Even further, as somebody alluded to above, Africa has the highest genetic diversity among the human population so there are also opportunities for one group who is vulnerable to a virus to contract it and then pass it on to another group who were not so vulnerable.
Unlike swine flu, viruses usually don't jump to distant species, it is far more likely that it goes from one species to another closely related species, and then another, and so on.
For all these reasons I would speculate that is why most new viruses come out of Africa and also why the ones that do tend to be so lethal.
Lol, I'm so glad I'm not the only one. The first thing I thought was, "what is it with Africa and all these deadly viruses?". Very interesting.
This is interesting information; however, is it really news? This strain was seen three years ago and apparently hasn't emerged since those few cases then. And is not related to the Ebola outbreak currently going on.
I guess I just find the headline misleading:
New virus in Africa looks like rabies, acts like Ebola
I assumed this meant it was currently going around, and might even BE responsible for the current epidemic.
Well, it's in the news now because they just published the research in PLoS Pathogens today (this is a major journal in the microbiology field). Yes, the virus cases happened a few years ago, but the paper characterizes the virus and tells us a lot of new information that wasn't previously known. Maybe it isn't interesting to everyone (understandable), but as a virologist, this is the kind of news that is interesting to me!
it does sometime take a while to isolate and indentify the infection.
from the description of it, this one is going to be difficult to treat.
Not to mention the Hanta virus ravaging the Southwest.
as heartless as it sounds a world wide "potential" pandemic might just be what this crazy extremist (Christian and Muslim) laden planet needs to pull its collective head out of its azz and get serious about getting along and all working for a common good.
The war between microbes and humans is a much scarier war than anything humans are engaged in against each other. West Nile virus is becoming an epidemic in the US. It is only a matter of time until something like Ebola, or this hits this country.
Please, humans are the most brutal creatures on this planet, even more brutal than insects.
Okay, a war on microbes is in order Stat! Microbes were here long before any other lifeform, and they'll be here long after we've imploded.
Why the deaths of a couple hundred people from a virus HUGE news, an EPIDEMIC while the deaths of 10s of thousands from gun violence irrelevant or even defensible?
The microbes are also fighting each other. They're just as dysfunctional as us.
Michael: We've already had our warning. Read Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone. Based on his NY Times report about the outbreak at the ATLAS facilities in suburban DC in '92. US Army personnel from Ft Detrick MD (military biodefense) were tasked with containment and decon of a VHF strain that burned through all of the primate lab animals present at what had been a converted warehouse in Reston VA. While the strain present was more virulent that Marburg/Ebola, it (mercifully) couldn't make the full jump to humans, but did give a few responders a variant fever (and a scare) that they'll never ever forget.
Sheesh, we need nanobots injected into our bloodstream that can physically tear apart virus particles, viruse cant become immune to physical assaults.
Four Horsemen of the Apocalype: War, Famine, Plague, ? (who knows what the other horseman is?)
Plaque....? But I brush after every meal...
the pale horse of Death
Mitt Romney?
peteMT (or is it pete empty?) - go troll elsewhere
Romney!
my ex gf
Ex-wife.
Wsmcke: Pestilence: as in hoards of vermin. Expansion of the rat population brought bubonic plague into eurasia during the 16th century.
I was going to say Roy Rogers.
the lone ranger...get's blamed for every thing...it's the mask ya' know...
It seems like many of these deadly viruses, and diseases originate in Africa
Humans originated in Africa. Must be where God lives
good point to stop all immigrates from coming to this country...but the virus will probably get here through someone on a business meeting to the USA from Africa...
Joseph: SARS came to North America courtesy of an air traveler who was exposed during a business trip to SE Asia. Patient became symptomatic enroute to Toronto-Pearson Int'l Airport. Due to already increased surveillance at ports-of-entry by HealthCanada, Pt was isolated for treatment/observation. All passengers/crew were screened for elevated body temperature (first exposure sign) before being allowed to continue to their connections. Two passengers and a crew member were held for observation (per CDC/WHO request) before they might leave for connections to US bound flights.
We could be less than 24 hours away from an infectious outbreak, due to the convenience of modern aviation. Like all convenience, it may come at a dire price.
Hopefully one of these viruses will do what our justice system can't.
And what would that be?
Michael S: VHF perceive us as nothing more than two legged, ambulatory petri dishes. Careful: Don't wish on anyone a fate you wouldn't want visited upon you/yours.
exokie you have strange ideas to think all of a continent is of the same as some doc you watched. One world one planet but you are free to leave.
Looks like one thing then acts like another. Life imitating life. I doubt if it is a "new" virus. A virus can remain dormant for thousands of years, I imagine there are lots of viruses laying about just being dormaint so be vary careful with that shovel my friend
That is true. it is just like the flea outbreak this year. i haven't seen so many fleas just pop out of the sand in years. You get rid of one batch and then here comes the next.
Didn't a little girl contract the Bubonic Plague? YIKES
Mutation. Has anyone ever thought that these things are made possible because the density of forest there? Misquitoes and flies live off of wet areas at one time in their lives, but when it is dry, they live in the trees.
Help put Americans to work who can look for cures for these things. Vote Romney!
Well Obama stopped deporting mexicans so he could count on them voting for him, so He probably won't deport any africans which started the aids concern now what more deadly bugs comming from the congo the darkest part of africa.
I love troll-hunting!! You are now on my list sir! As with most your anti-Obama rants (that do not reflect the topic posted btw) as always they are incorrect.. Obama has deported more illegals in 3 years than Bush did...check your facts please..but I expect that is too much to ask a troll.
It is an enigma with Africa, all the most deadly viruses and animals in general, seem to come from there. Along with the earliest known human existence. South Anerica does have it's dangerous animals too, like the poison frogs especially. But Africa seems to usually be the more common source of dangerous life in general.
Not sure why they think it "looks like rabies" though. Under the microscope or initial symptoms or path of contagion?
x
Don't want that over here, always something.
Nothing good comes from Africa....
Sorry.
Hmm -
Fire, Cultivation, Iron Smelting, Coffee, Beer, Cannabis, Glass, Music, the Condom, High-heeled shoes, Paper, the Pen, the Plow, Writing, Makeup, Cheetahs....
also Humanity and Civilization
Now what have American Red States contributed to our world?
One word to describe humanity's greatest threat: overpopulation. With people piled on top of people like we are in our major world cities all its going to take is the right pathogen and it will spread faster then the black plague of Europe wiping out millions. Overpopulation is putting demands on this planet's resources that it cannot meet. And so it will respond accordingly.
You are right, Ron46. Also, a virus that kills quickly would put many of these poverty stricken people out of their misery. They would be better off, and it would help curb their population, since they are unwilling to do it voluntarily.
The problem: pathogens which kill millions do NOT respect socio/economic strata. All of us are at risk - the rich, the poor and the arrogant.
The picture here is misleading- that's actually a filamentous Filovirus, in the same family of Ebola and Marburg. However the newly discovered one is actually in Rhabdovirus, the rabies family. As a scientist in the NIAID Virus Pathogen Resource, I can verify we don't have this record yet as the authors in PLOS show. This is a new rabies type virus. See our site for its distant relatives: Thanks.
Actually, the caption says the virus shown above is Ebola.
There might be a silver lining to this.Vaccines for Rhabdoviruses and most DNA viruses are extremely effective and long lasting. Unlike RNA viruses, DNA viruses have a low probability of genetic mutations.
ebola + rabies = zombies
I'm trying to think of the last good thing to come out of Africa and it's got me stumped.
Humans?
Mankind would be the first. A little research and I am sure you will come up with much good out of Africa. Off hand, I can think of coffee, gold, uranium. How about civilization, out of Egypt, along with mathematics and astronomy. Your turn.
I hope we weren't all being indirectly insulting to the denizens of Africa today. But yes, humans did come out of the place, and if you can't appreciate that...
Damn Nature you scary!
Africa may have been the cradle of man but man got out of there as fast as he could.
Get as many samples as possible, grow as much of it as you can, get it into an aerosol delivery agent and distribute it in population centers with a population in excess of 3 m people. That'll get us in check.
Nature's doing her job at making things to keep our #s down but we're resisting her efforts. That resistance is only lowering the quality of life for everyone. To improve the health of a plant, pruning is always required. With the aerosol delivery 2 plants would flourish, the Earth's health would improve and our species' health would improve too.
Don't know what the next super virus will be but I know where it will come from. Thanks in advance Congo.