A New Ebola Threat
By Kurt Loft of The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 6, 2008
TAMPA - They call it a demon of the jungle.
Workers wearing protective clothing carry the corpse of a five-year-old boy who died early Friday from the isolation center to a pickup truck that will carry his body to the cemetery, Friday Dec. 28, 2001, in Mekambo, northeastern Gabon.
But it soon may leave the cover of darkness and hunt its prey elsewhere, out from under the dense forests of sub-Saharan Africa. Ebola is among the world's most feared and insidious microterrors, a virus that kills a high percentage of its victims because there is no defense against it.
People in other parts of the world read about Ebola from a safe distance, although the details are alarming: Dozens of villages in the Congo have been wiped out since the virus was first discovered more than 30 years ago, along with doctors and nurses trying to help the sick and dying.
Now, something just as unsettling is happening. A new strain of Ebola has emerged in Uganda, one scientists fear could spread beyond the epicenter of its outbreaks. In the past month, the highly contagious germ has killed nearly 40 people, including four health workers.
Much work needs to be done to understand the new strain and how it might travel, but it's definitely a red flag for health officials, said Steven J. Lawrence, an assistant professor of medicine with the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis.
"There is concern that the current Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda is caused by a previously unrecognized strain," he said by telephone. "There is always a risk that diseases usually found in one geographic region could spread to other regions."
Doctors treating victims of the outbreak were unaware it was Ebola, according to a recent Associated Press report out of Kampala, Uganda. The subtype that sparked the outbreak is new, according to the report, and so "the classical Ebola symptoms were not always present, slowing diagnosis." It took experts nearly 70 days to confirm that the virus was indeed Ebola.
Named after the river in the Congo where it was first isolated in 1976, Ebola causes a viral hemorrhagic fever, an often-fatal disease in people, monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees. Like a brush fire, it has appeared sporadically, but often with swift efficiency, killing up to 80 percent of those infected and decimating entire villages, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Until now, epidemiologists have recognized four variants, or subtypes: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and Ebola-Reston (lethal to primates but not humans). Word of the new strain is "an important discovery for the scientific community," Pierre Formenty, a World Health Organization expert, told AP.
This most recent strain, unofficially called Ebola-Uganda, appears to be less virulent, but that doesn't mean health officials can relax. While the other Ebola strains kill their victims quickly, the new variation appears to lay dormant for a period of time — an ideal strategy for spreading.
"Theoretically, it is possible that a person infected with Ebola could travel to other locations; however, infectious or contagious patients are usually very ill and not able to readily travel," Lawrence said. He added that "in countries with more advanced health care systems that employ good infection control practices, it is unlikely that a single infected patient would transmit the virus to many other people."
The question is whether the new face of Ebola will appear in regions with poor health care, areas unprepared for its killing technique. When first infected, a person feels flu-like symptoms, fever and vomiting. Then, the virus takes over like a relentless molecular shark.
It attacks every organ and tissue except the skeletal system, destroying the cellular walls and causing massive internal bleeding. The victim "crashes out," releasing blood from all the body's openings, even through the skin. A dramatic loss of blood pressure causes the organs to shut down. The CDC says there is no known cure.
"Ebola is uniquely adapted to severely damage cells in the human body," Lawrence said. "The damage leads to leaking of fluid out of the blood vessels, and as is often the case in the most severe cases, to uncontrolled bleeding both internally and externally."
Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.
http://www.printthis.clickability.c...2008/jan/06/new-ebola-threat/&partnerID=97476
By Kurt Loft of The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 6, 2008
TAMPA - They call it a demon of the jungle.
Workers wearing protective clothing carry the corpse of a five-year-old boy who died early Friday from the isolation center to a pickup truck that will carry his body to the cemetery, Friday Dec. 28, 2001, in Mekambo, northeastern Gabon.
But it soon may leave the cover of darkness and hunt its prey elsewhere, out from under the dense forests of sub-Saharan Africa. Ebola is among the world's most feared and insidious microterrors, a virus that kills a high percentage of its victims because there is no defense against it.
People in other parts of the world read about Ebola from a safe distance, although the details are alarming: Dozens of villages in the Congo have been wiped out since the virus was first discovered more than 30 years ago, along with doctors and nurses trying to help the sick and dying.
Now, something just as unsettling is happening. A new strain of Ebola has emerged in Uganda, one scientists fear could spread beyond the epicenter of its outbreaks. In the past month, the highly contagious germ has killed nearly 40 people, including four health workers.
Much work needs to be done to understand the new strain and how it might travel, but it's definitely a red flag for health officials, said Steven J. Lawrence, an assistant professor of medicine with the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis.
"There is concern that the current Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda is caused by a previously unrecognized strain," he said by telephone. "There is always a risk that diseases usually found in one geographic region could spread to other regions."
Doctors treating victims of the outbreak were unaware it was Ebola, according to a recent Associated Press report out of Kampala, Uganda. The subtype that sparked the outbreak is new, according to the report, and so "the classical Ebola symptoms were not always present, slowing diagnosis." It took experts nearly 70 days to confirm that the virus was indeed Ebola.
Named after the river in the Congo where it was first isolated in 1976, Ebola causes a viral hemorrhagic fever, an often-fatal disease in people, monkeys, gorillas and chimpanzees. Like a brush fire, it has appeared sporadically, but often with swift efficiency, killing up to 80 percent of those infected and decimating entire villages, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Until now, epidemiologists have recognized four variants, or subtypes: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and Ebola-Reston (lethal to primates but not humans). Word of the new strain is "an important discovery for the scientific community," Pierre Formenty, a World Health Organization expert, told AP.
This most recent strain, unofficially called Ebola-Uganda, appears to be less virulent, but that doesn't mean health officials can relax. While the other Ebola strains kill their victims quickly, the new variation appears to lay dormant for a period of time — an ideal strategy for spreading.
"Theoretically, it is possible that a person infected with Ebola could travel to other locations; however, infectious or contagious patients are usually very ill and not able to readily travel," Lawrence said. He added that "in countries with more advanced health care systems that employ good infection control practices, it is unlikely that a single infected patient would transmit the virus to many other people."
The question is whether the new face of Ebola will appear in regions with poor health care, areas unprepared for its killing technique. When first infected, a person feels flu-like symptoms, fever and vomiting. Then, the virus takes over like a relentless molecular shark.
It attacks every organ and tissue except the skeletal system, destroying the cellular walls and causing massive internal bleeding. The victim "crashes out," releasing blood from all the body's openings, even through the skin. A dramatic loss of blood pressure causes the organs to shut down. The CDC says there is no known cure.
"Ebola is uniquely adapted to severely damage cells in the human body," Lawrence said. "The damage leads to leaking of fluid out of the blood vessels, and as is often the case in the most severe cases, to uncontrolled bleeding both internally and externally."
Reporter Kurt Loft can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com.
http://www.printthis.clickability.c...2008/jan/06/new-ebola-threat/&partnerID=97476