<TABLE class=border id=HEADLINES cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" bgColor=#b3d2f3 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=fptextBlack style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; PADDING-TOP: 5px" bgColor=#e6e6e6>Mystery virus identified as new strain 24/10/2008 06:27:40
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Health officials say the killer bug that has hit Gauteng is a new strain of an Arena Virus.
Three people have died in Johannesburg after contracting the disease in the last month and a nurse at the Morningside Medi-Clinic is in a serious condition.
At first doctors were unable to determine what type of viral haemorrhagic fever it was but they found preliminary evidence that the virus is carried by wild rodents.
Chief Director of Communicable Diseases at the Health Department Frew Benson says they have been able to identify it as part of the arena virus family but the virus itself is new.
“It has not been described as yet. They are obviously in the process of recording all the characteristics of the virus so that it can be given a name,” said Benson.
Benson says there is no need for South Africans to panic as this virus has been contained.
“The outbreak has been contained at that specific hospital at this time,” reassured Benson.

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