South African public health officials are closely monitoring an “unknown disease similar to hemorrhagic fever” that has killed three people in Johannesburg.

Melinda Pelser, spokeswoman at Johannesburg’s Morningside Clinic, said the disease causes external and internal bleeding and was spread through bodily fluids. There were no signs it was airborne.

Tests were being carried out on the body of a Morningside hospital cleaner, to see if his death was also connected to the disease.

South Africa’s Health Department, which issued an alert over the weekend, said: “Blood samples of three of the cases are negative for any particular disease, including Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers.”

“At this stage the Department cannot confirm speculations linking these deaths to Ebola or any of the other viral hemorrhagic fevers,” officials said.

Dr. Frew Benson, the department’s director of communicable diseases, said that “our one concern is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with…the fact that we don’t know what the disease is, is a matter of concern for us.”

There are several strains of hemorrhagic fever, including Ebola and Marburg, that have killed hundreds of people in outbreaks in Africa.

The diseases lead to bleeding from multiple body sites and can have very high death rates.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor 

Doctors treat patient with Ebola virus.

Posted: October 27th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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The altruistic arm of Internet search engine pioneer Google, Inc. this week said it had given grants of more than $14 million to support physicians working in Southeast Asia and Africa to prevent the next pandemic.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google.org’s Predict and Prevent initiative is supporting efforts to identify “hot spots” where infectious diseases may emerge, discover new pathogens in animal and human populations, and react to outbreaks before they become global crises.

New lethal infectious diseases crop up every year, Google said, including variants of HIV/AIDS, bird flu and SARS, as well as drug-resistant strains of ancient scourges malaria and tuberculosis.

Google said three-quarters of new diseases are “zoonoses, meaning they’ve jumped from animals to humans.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: October 21st, 2008 under Avian Flu, Clostridium difficile, Developing Diseases, EV71, Ebola Virus, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, HPV, Hendra Virus, Impaired Immunity, Legionnaires' Disease, MRSA, SARS, West Nile Virus.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has tapped Dutch biopharma company, Crucell N.V.
for a contract aimed at promoting the development of a multivalent filovirus vaccine that includes both Ebola and Marburg viruses.

The contract includes the funding of $30 million, with additional options that may be selected at the discretion of the NIH, worth another $40 million.

According to Dr. Jaap Goudsmit, Crucell’s chief scientific officer, this award recognizes the scientific basis for using rare adenovirus serotypes to develop vaccines. “The contract builds upon earlier work Crucell has performed with the Vaccine Research Center at NIH, and brings us a step closer to being able to provide effective countermeasures against a highly lethal infectious disease,” said Goudsmit.

Crucell will be the primary contractor with additional services being supplied by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, located in San Antonio, Texas and Quintiles Guys Drug Research, located in London.

The Ebola and Marburg viruses cause hemorrhagic fever, a severe, often-fatal disease in humans. This disease is characterized by high fever and massive internal bleeding causing death in 50 percent to 80 percent of all cases.

Ebola and Marburg outbreaks occur in tropical Africa, affecting both human and great ape populations.

Since the Ebola virus was first recognized, approximately 2,200 cases including over 1,500 deaths have been reported. To date over 440 cases of Marburg have been reported with approximately 360 fatalities.

Ebola and Marburg appear in sporadic outbreaks, and spread within a health-care setting. Because of the high disease-related mortality rates and lack of any vaccine or therapy, the Ebola and Marburg viruses are on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention category “A” list of bio-terror agents.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: October 8th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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Scientists have discovered the secret to the fatal Ebola virus — a single protein that resides on the surface of the microorganism. The research opens the possibility of new therapies, stopping a virus that, though somewhat rare, can kill up to 90 percent of the people it infects.

The so-called Ebola virus glycoprotein was first discerned years ago, but, until now, researchers did not understand the protein’s structure—and thus, the best way to stop it.

“It’s the only thing that the virus puts on its surface that is absolutely critical for attaching to a host and driving into that host for infection,” says Erica Ollmann Saphire, an immunologist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and a co-author of the report in Nature Magazine.

Scientists found that the compound is wrapped in benign carbohydrates that mask the virus’s deadliness, allowing it to elude immune system scouts.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: July 22nd, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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Killer afflictions, including anthrax and the Ebola virus, may be accidentally released in Britain due to slipshod management of science labs, the House of Commons is reporting.

In a report from the Science Committee of the House of Commons, members of the Parliament said security at the U.K.’s 10 labs handling deadly diseases is “at risk” due to poor maintenance and investment.

Last year’s foot and mouth outbreak at the animal health lab in Pirbright, Surrey demonstrated that a contagious outbreak is just a few bad decisions away from happening in the U.K. 

The science committee said: “The costs to human or animal health are devastating.” They called for better staff vetting, more funding, and a minister for biosecurity.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, MA, Editorial Director

An Ebola virus outbreak in the U.K. is possible, experts say.

Posted: July 6th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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A $198 million medical building at Boston University is raising concern among residents in the neighborhoods near the school.  Microorganisms that cause Ebola, SARS, and the bubonic plague are among viruses and bacteria that scientists are stockpiling at a biosafety lab there for the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Court challenges have been launched by South End and Roxbury residents, who reckon airborne germs may escape the lab and cause illness or death to their kin.

Boston University believes the lab will be safe, yield important research, and help the school, city, and region by adding jobs and an estimated $72 million a year in research contracts. The school is likely to prevail because of the lab’s potential benefits to society, said Arthur Caplan, an ethicist who follows health-policy clashes.

“It could easily bring in grants in the tens of millions of dollars,” Caplan, 58, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told the media. “It is not fair to say that it is money versus ethics, but that at the end of the day the benefits overwhelm the concerns about the risk.”

The U.S. has six similar labs, none in Massachusetts. Long overshadowed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nearby Cambridge, Boston University, hopes to move past those schools as places where infectious germs and vaccines can be studied.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, MA, Editorial Director

Boston residents fear that their neighborhoods may be plagued by deadly infectious diseases.

Posted: June 27th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, SARS.
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Veterinary researchers are reporting that an “Ebola virus for fish” has emerged in the U.S.

The disease is called viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS),  a lethal fish disease that causes severe hemorrhaging and is capable of producing massive fish kills in a number of fish schools, including walleye, muskie, perch, sunfish, crappie, and smallmouth and largemouth bass.

The virus  isn’t native to the Great Lakes, and was first diagnosed in Lakes St. Clair and Ontario in 2005. Fish kills have occurred in other Great Lakes, including Huron and Michigan, and inland lakes in New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Fish experts predict it is just a matter of time before the virus spreads throughout the entire U.S.

While it does not pose a threat to people who handle or eat an infected catch, it is not a friendly virus, and it’s something fishermen will want to be well aware of as the fishing season starts, says Nicholas Phelps, aquaculture specialist at the University of Minnesota’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL).

“It will likely have a detrimental impact on the commercial fishing industry,” Phelps said. “This includes all fish – both for stocking and bait – that will be required to undergo strict and expensive testing before release into state waters.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: June 2nd, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus.
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Doctors have revealed that studies of the recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda demonstrate that the deadly Ebola virus is mutating and acquiring a longer “latent period.”

According to Monica Musenero, a senior epidemiologist, laboratory tests showed there were cases that had acquired the virus but did not sicken infected patients.

“When we tested some of the people, they were healthy. There was evidence that they had been exposed to the Ebola virus but they have never been sick,” she says.

The killer disease has taken the lives of 37 people out of 149 cumulative infections in the western district of Bundibugyo, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Other important facts:

* Due to the mutation of the virus, it is difficult for doctors to detect it.

* Doctors say, however that it appears that Ebola is trying to make itself faster, tougher and smarter.

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. are both eyeing the outbreak.  

Experts predict virus may change and cause a “chronic disease” or perhaps a “severe disease” but it may not reach the extent of HIV infections in Africa.

This was the second time the Ebola virus struck the country after it killed 224 people from 2000 to 2001.

The fatality rate of the outbreak this time was much lower than previously.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Biomarker of the Ebola virus courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control.

Posted: February 25th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, Feature Stories.
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A team of scientists has demonstrated that the rate of growth of new infectious diseases — HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile Virus and Ebola Virus – is indeed on the rise.

Analyzing a total 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has demonstrated that zoonoses — diseases that originate in pets and other animals — are the most important threat in causing these new diseases to emerge.

Most of the diseases, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another fiend, leading to diseases such as extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB).

The team was led by University of Georgia professor John Gittleman and scientists from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Institute of Zoology (London) and Columbia University. The doctors published their findings in the learned journal Nature.

The scientists discovered that more new diseases emerged in the 1980s than any other decade, “likely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which led to a range of other new diseases in people,” says Mark Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESN) at Columbia University.

To predict and prevent future attacks, new computer algorithms were used to design a global map of emerging disease hotspots.

“This is a seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases,” said Gittleman, dean of the Odum School of Ecology, who developed the approach used in analyzing the global database.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: February 20th, 2008 under Avian Flu, Developing Diseases, Ebola Virus, Feature Stories, Infection Protection, MRSA, Morgellons Disease, Pet Diseases, SARS, West Nile Virus.
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The Baltimore Sun is reporting: KAMPALA, Uganda — Health workers, including two physicians, are among the dead in an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, spreading fear among doctors and nurses needed to help treat victims of the highly contagious disease, officials said. Doctors and nurses did not at first know what they were facing, so failed to protect themselves, according to a lawmaker representing the western region at the center of the outbreak. Experts say the Ebola subtype that sparked the outbreak is new and the classic Ebola symptoms were not always present, slowing diagnosis. According to the Ministry of Health’s latest figures, Bundibugyo has 93 suspected cases of Ebola, among them 22 deaths. Four health workers were among the dead in an outbreak that began August 20. The disease was not confirmed as Ebola until November 29.

See, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.briefs07dec07,0,5574071.story

The Ugandan government has not yet declared a state of emergency — but health authorities in other countries, including neighboring Kenya, are very worried. The previous outbreak of Ebola in Uganda killed 224 people from October, 2000 to March, 2001. Doctors say that Ebola is one of the most “virulent” viral diseases known to humankind with a death rate ranging from 50 percent to 90 percent and can be spread by close contact with the body fluids of the infected. The government of Uganda is warning people there not to shake hands — so they don’t spread the disease. We also recommend the wearing of gloves and masks for those who live in, or are traveling to, affected areas. — The Editors

Posted: December 9th, 2007 under Ebola Virus, News.
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