Star:
Joburg's name now attached to new killer virus
May 29, 2009
ATLANTA: Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus.
The "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last year. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by medicine recommended by the scientists.
It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug came from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.
"This one is really, really aggressive" he said.
A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online in PLoS Pathogens yesterday.
The outbreak started in September, when a travel agent who lived in Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.
She was airlifted to Joburg, where she died.
A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Joburg and died.
The three others infected were health-care workers in Joburg.
Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.
"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.
The name given to the virus - "Lujo" - stems from Lusaka and Joburg, the cities where it was first identified.
Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the Special Pathogens Branch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Other symptoms include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.
Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at the CDC in Atlanta.
Tests determined that it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.
The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient, a Joburg nurse.
It's not clear if the medicine made a difference, or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she recovered fully, Nichol said.
The research was a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of days - a process that used to take weeks or longer.
Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.
Joburg's name now attached to new killer virus
May 29, 2009
ATLANTA: Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus.
The "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last year. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by medicine recommended by the scientists.
It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug came from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.
"This one is really, really aggressive" he said.
A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online in PLoS Pathogens yesterday.
The outbreak started in September, when a travel agent who lived in Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.
She was airlifted to Joburg, where she died.
A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Joburg and died.
The three others infected were health-care workers in Joburg.
Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.
"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.
The name given to the virus - "Lujo" - stems from Lusaka and Joburg, the cities where it was first identified.
Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the Special Pathogens Branch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Other symptoms include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.
Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at the CDC in Atlanta.
Tests determined that it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.
The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient, a Joburg nurse.
It's not clear if the medicine made a difference, or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she recovered fully, Nichol said.
The research was a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of days - a process that used to take weeks or longer.
Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.