New virus carried by bats discovered

[Gert van der Hoek]

New virus carried by bats discovered

June 26, 2007 - 12:04PM

Australian scientists have played a key role in the discovery of a new virus carried by bats that can cause a serious flu-like symptoms in humans.

Dr Linfa Wang, a molecular virologist with the CSIRO in Geelong, Victoria, said the new virus was named Melaka, after the area of Malaysia where it was isolated in early 2006.

"So far, we don't have evidence that it is fatal, but it causes severe respiratory distress," Dr Wang told AAP.

"It like a severe dose of flu or SARS-like symptoms," he said.

Over 8,000 cases of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, were reported in a number of countries after an epidemic between November 2002 and July 2003.

Dr Wang said the Melaka virus was closely related to the Nelson Bay reovirus, which was isolated from a fruit bat in NSW in 1968.

Reoviruses, or Respiratory Enteric Orphan viruses, were first isolated in humans in the early 1950s and named because they were not associated with any known disease.

The Melaka virus causes fever, headache, muscle aches and pains, as well as vomiting and diarrhoea in children.

So far, only one family in Malaysia had fallen victim to the virus and all had recovered, Dr Wang said.

"That family had a visit from a bat," Dr Wang said.

"In Malaysia, they have open doors and open windows, and one night they were watching TV and a bat flew in and frenetically tried to get out for two to three minutes.

"It eventually went out and then seven days later, the father of the family got sick.

"Another seven days later, two of his five children came down with flu-like symptoms."

Malaysian health authorities at first thought the family had contracted SARS or bird flu, Dr Wang said.

But when they could not identify the samples sent to laboratories in Selangor, they called on Australian scientists at the CSIRO laboratories in Geelong to collaborate on the project.

Dr Wang said Australia had a similar genus of fruit bats to those in Malaysia, although not the same species.

"What we want to know now is how widespread it is in bats and what the risk factors are in different populations," he said.

"We should also try to avoid direct contact with bats, which are the only mammals that can fly, and therefore have a different environment and ecological niche."

The research findings have published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...bats-discovered/2007/06/26/1182623873014.html

 

[Snowy Owl]

Bat virus found in humans

Bat virus found in humans

Bat virus found in humans

Transcript

This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio.
You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA and MP3 formats.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2007/s1961951.htm
​

AM - Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 08:28:59

Reporter: Karen Barlow

TONY EASTLEY: In a rare find, Australian scientists have discovered a new virus which is thought to have jumped the species barrier from bats to humans.

The Melaka virus is not believed to be a killer virus, but its symptoms of fever and respiratory illness are severe and it's easily passed on to others.

Scientists from the CSIRO and Malaysia's National Public Health Laboratory have reported the new virus in the American journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Karen Barlow reports.

KAREN BARLOW: Named after the Malaysian region it was found, the Melaka virus represents a new trend of infectious diseases coming from animals, known as zoonotic viruses.

It causes an illness with similar respiratory symptoms to deadly avian flu. But the head of the Australian team which discovered the virus, the CSIRO's Dr Linfa Wang, says Melaka is not fatal.

LINFA WANG, DR: They would have fever and of course very tired. It's just like you have a very nasty flu and a headache, cough, you know, runny nose, all of these, but at least one incident that children get infected they also have vomiting and diarrhoea.

KAREN BARLOW: Melaka is a type of reovirus, a group of viruses which was discovered in the 1950s but never known to have any disease associated with it.

Dr Linfa Wang says Melaka is a significant discovery.

LINFA WANG, DR: So this research is the first one to discover a reovirus in that group actually cause acute respiratory infections in human. So that's quite important.

KAREN BARLOW: In Melaka's first documented outbreak in a Malaysian family, the father picked it up first and then passed it onto two of his children a week later.

Lab tests confirmed it was not avian flu and it was found that the family was exposed to a bat one week before the man's symptoms emerged.

Dr Linfa Wang says bats are known virus hosts.

LINFA WANG, DR: Bats are unique it's the only mammal that can fly, so it has a different environment and ecological niche. So that certainly for sure that carries a lot of viruses, so if we over pressure them or stress them, like the degradation of the forest and things like that, would enhance the chance of disease virus to spill over from bats to human population.

KAREN BARLOW: Well are there parallels here with the deadly SARS virus? That apparently came from bats.

LINFA WANG, DR: Yes, certainly, because our group was involved actually in the discovery of bats as the reservoir of the SARS virus. So yes, this is very similar parallel data.

KAREN BARLOW: There will be far-reaching scientific and medical benefits from Melaka's discovery.

More than half of all respiratory infections are undiagnosed, and Dr Wang says Melaka is an important piece in the puzzle.

TONY EASTLEY: Karen Barlow reporting.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: New virus carried by bats discovered


New bat virus sickens three in Malaysian family

HONG KONG, June 28 (Reuters) - A newly discovered virus that is probably carried by bats has caused acute respiratory disease in three members of the same family in Malaysia, scientists said.

Bats are carriers of a number of viruses, including SARS that killed about 800 people globally in 2003, Nipah that killed more than 100 people in Malaysia in 1999 and the Hendra virus which killed 1 person and 14 horses in Australia in 1994.

Writing in the July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists in Malaysia and Australia said they isolated a previously unknown virus from a 39-year-old army clerk in Malacca, Malaysia, who fell sick in March 2006.

The issue was published online this week.

The man developed high fever, loss of appetite, fatigue and acute respiratory illness about a week after a bat flew into his home as he was watching television in the living room.

The creature flew "frantically" for two to three minutes in the living room before flying out the same door through which it entered, the report said.

Two of his five children, an 11-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son, developed milder symptoms a week after the man fell ill. All three have since recovered.

Virus samples taken from the three of them proved identical and have since been named the Melaka virus. The researchers say it belongs to the family of reoviruses, which were first found in humans in the early 1950s.

"Melaka virus is a unique orthoreovirus capable of infecting and causing disease in humans. The infection of multiple members in the same family and the delayed onset by one week of clinical symptoms of the two children strongly suggest human-to-human transmission," the scientists wrote.

While the researchers have no direct evidence showing that the Melaka virus originates from bats, later analyses found it was closely related to the Pulau virus, another reovirus isolated in 1999 from fruit bats on Tioman island in Malaysia.

They also detected Melaka virus antibodies in recent tests of serum samples collected between 2001 and 2002, from volunteers from Tioman island, indicating these people had been infected previously by the virus.

The batch of serum was originally collected for surveillance against the Nipah virus.

Looking ahead, the researchers said identification of the Melaka virus would help doctors better diagnose the cause for respiratory tract illnesses (RTI), which are among the symptoms seen in SARS and bird flu patients.

"When severe RTI patients (are admitted to) hospital, it is important not only to exclude SARS or highly pathogenic avian influenza, but also to accurately determine the causative agent so that a targeted treatment regimen can be implemented," they said.

http://wap.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HKG303822.htm

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Bat virus found in humans

Re: Bat virus found in humans

New bat virus sickens three in Malaysian family
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=new-bat-virus-sickens-thr&chanId=sa003&modsrc=reuters
June 28, 2007​

HONG KONG (Reuters)

A newly discovered virus that is probably carried by bats has caused acute respiratory disease in three members of the same family in Malaysia, scientists said.

Bats are carriers of a number of viruses, including SARS that killed about 800 people globally in 2003, Nipah that killed more than 100 people in Malaysia in 1999 and the Hendra virus which killed 1 person and 14 horses in Australia in 1994.

Writing in the July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists in Malaysia and Australia said they isolated a previously unknown virus from a 39-year-old army clerk in Malacca, Malaysia, who fell sick in March 2006.

The issue was published online this week.

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Bat virus found in humans

Re: Bat virus found in humans

Avian Flu Seen in Others Birds too

http://www.medindia.net/news/Avian-Flu-Seen-in-Others-Birds-too-22791-1.htm​

Just when the experts are happy about the significant improvement in containing the bird flu AUSTRALIAN scientists have reported the discovery of a new virus carried by bats that can cause serious flu-like symptoms in humans.

Health and veterinary experts have singled out Indonesia, Egypt and Nigeria as countries where the risk of bird flu contagion is particularly worrisome.

FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said important results have been achieved in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He said that in places where the H5N1 virus was introduced during the past six months, it was rapidly detected and eliminated or controlled.

But he warned that, although the response to the deadly H5N1 virus in poultry has significantly improved over the past three years, the virus remains entrenched in several countries and will continue to spread.

But Domenech also stressed that there should be absolutely no reason for complacency.

"The H5N1 virus is not stable and keeps constantly changing. On one occasion in China last year a new virus strain appeared with different immunologic characteristics which made it necessary to modify the vaccines used in the region concerned. This emergence of a new strain may have happened again more recently in Indonesia."

The new disease is causing a lot of concern. A new respiratory disease that causes flu-like symptoms may be spread by bats.

The virus was discovered in three members of a family in Malaysia last year.

The Melaka virus, named after the place it was discovered, is not believed to be a killer virus, but its symptoms of fever and respiratory illness are severe and it's easily passed on to others.

It causes an illness with similar respiratory symptoms to deadly avian flu.

Dr Linfa Wang, a molecular virologist with the CSIRO in Geelong, Victoria, said ?So far, we don't have evidence that it is fatal, but it causes severe respiratory distress.?

The Melaka virus represents a new trend of infectious diseases coming from animals, known as zoonotic viruses.

In Germany, authorities are testing the carcasses of four birds to determine whether they carried the H5N1 strain of avian flu after the virus was found in nine cases in the country in the past three days.

Six birds infected with the virus were found dead in the southern state of Bavaria and three in the eastern state of Saxony. The disease has been found in geese and turkeys on farms in Hungary, the U.K. and the Czech Republic this year.

The three birds discovered near the German city of Nuremberg June 24 are the European Union's first cases of H5N1 in wild birds this year. In 2006, it was detected in more than 700 wild birds in the EU.

So far, there is no evidence that the deadly strain of the virus has been transmitted from person to person. But experts fear that if the H5N1 virus mutates it could become easily transmitted among humans, triggering a global pandemic.

The FAO experts said efficient veterinary services and improved private/public partnership for better surveillance and control are indispensable.

Since 2003, the H5N1 virus has infected 310 people. A total of 190 have died of the disease. Some 250 million poultry have been destroyed, or have died from bird flu. Over the past two years, the international community has pledged more than $2.4 billion to deal with avian influenza.

Researchers are working on a vaccine to prevent the deadly form of the disease.

A long-term presence of the virus will require a long-term financial and political commitment from governments and the international community to finally contain and eradicate the virus.

"The socially and economically equitable adjustment of poultry production and marketing systems for safer product supply is essential to reduce infection risks. Without forgetting that efficient veterinary services and improved private public partnership for better surveillance and control activities remain indispensable," said Mr. Domonech

There is a need for intensified monitoring of virus circulation particularly in countries that are using poultry vaccines.

Source-Medindia

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Malayasian State Offended By Name Of Bat Virus

Malayasian State Offended By Name Of Bat Virus

The government of the state of Melaka in southern Malaysia is offended by the fact scientists have chosen to name a newly discovered bat-borne virus the Melaka virus.

Melaka's Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam, said on Saturday that he was insulted by the idea of the state's name being used for a virus, according to a report in theStar online.

The Chief Minister said he would be sending an official letter of complaint to the Malaysian Health Ministry.

He said if the name was already official then he wanted it changed, and he would also send letters overseas to those countries who might be using the name.

Mohd Ali suggested the virus be named after the doctor or scientist who found it. "Malacca is a good state, beautiful and peaceful, not the birthplace of diseases," he said.

The virus was discovered by a team of Malaysian and Australian scientists led by Dr Chua Kaw Bing from the Malaysian Ministry of Health.

The scientists believe that the virus represents a new type of infectious disease emanating from animals called "zoonotic viruses".

The virus was first detected in May last year when a 39 year old man from Bemban in Melaka developed an acute respiratory illness characterized by high fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose. His children and his wife also caught the infection.

The symptoms are similar to that of the deadly strain of Avian flu but not fatal. The family was tested for avian flu and it was only when the scientists discovered that a week earlier a bat had flown into their home that they suspected it was a bat-borne disease that is spread by water droplets.

The symptoms include high fever for four days or so, temperature as high as 41 deg C, cough, runny nose, feeling tired and finding it painful to swallow because of a swollen throat.

When they analysed the virus they found it was a close genetic match to one that was found nearly 20 years ago in fruit bats in Pulau Tioman, one of the many volcanic islands off the eastern coast of Malaysia.

When they tested 109 human volunteers in the island, they found 14 of them (13 per cent) had both the Pulau and Melaka viruses, said Dr Kaw Bing.

Further studies will now commence to develop diagnostic and surveillance tools and find out how the virus develops. The project will be a collaboration between Malaysia's Institute for Medical Research, the National Public Health Laboratory and the Australian Animal Health Laboratory.

Bats also carry SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). The scientists who did the research suggest that as more deforestation occurs and the bat's natural habitats diminish, we will see more of them encroaching on urban areas and we must be prepared for more bat-borne illnesses infecting humans.

The man from Melaka and his family have since made a full recovery.

Click here to learn more about Zoonotic viruses (wikipedia).

Written by: Catharine Paddock
Writer: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=75785

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: New virus carried by bats discovered

<TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Melaka virus needs a new name


</TD></TR><TR><TD class=article-author>Disease/Infection News</TD></TR><TR><TD class=article-date>Published: Monday, 2-Jul-2007</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Printer Friendly / Email to a Friend Links --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=15></TD><TD></TD><TD></TD><TD width=18></TD><TD>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=2 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="BACKGROUND: url(aspvirtualnews/template_images/smalldot.gif)" height=25></TD></TR><TR><TD>Health officials in Malaysia who had christened a newly discovered bat virus the 'Melaka Virus' will have to come up with another name after a protest from some government ministers.

The bat virus was originally given the name 'Melaka' because it was first identified last year in a man and two of his children who were living in Bemban, Melacca.
It is a type of reovirus which was discovered in the 1950s but was never known to have any disease associated with it.
Disease experts say there are parallels between the Melaka virus and the deadly SARS virus, which bats can also carry; bats also carry rabies.
The Melaka virus is not believed to be a killer virus, but the symptoms of fever and respiratory illness are severe and it is easily passed on to others.
The Melaka virus represents a new trend of infectious diseases coming from animals, known as zoonotic viruses.
Experts believe the man had been exposed to a bat that flew into his home and it is suspected he then passed the virus on to his children.
The Melaka bat virus is characterized by respiratory distress, and a high fever but according to Health Minister Dr. Chua Soi Lek it will now be given a different name.
The Health Minister says the virus will be named based on a list of guidelines drafted by an international committee and the name could possibly be connected to the place where the patient infected with the virus is from.
Dr. Chua says it was not the intention of the ministry to insult Melacca when it named the virus after the state but other similar viruses such as the Nipah and Tioman viruses were named after the places where they were discovered.
According to Dr. Chua, several medical journals published in the United States have already referred to the virus as the Melaka Virus.
Health Ministry scientist Professor Dr. Chua Kaw Bing, who is from the region, discovered all the three viruses.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam who led the protest says if possible the virus will be renamed as they do not wish the good name of the state to be tarnished in this way.
Mohd Ali has urged the ministry to retract the use of the name immediately saying Malacca is a good state, beautiful and peaceful and not the birthplace of diseases.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/7/1/nation/20070701145955&sec=nation

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