Scientists discover new arenavirus associated with hemorrhagic fever

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/plos-sdn041508.php

Public release date: 17-Apr-2008
Contact: Mary Kohut
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Public Library of Science

Scientists discover new arenavirus associated with hemorrhagic fever

A team of Bolivian health authorities, U.S. Navy health experts based in Lima, Peru, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has characterized ?Chapare arenavirus,? a previously unrecognized arenavirus, discovered in serum samples from a patient in rural Bolivia who eventually died of the infection. A full report of the study is published April 18th in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Named after the Chapare River in the eastern foothills of the Andes, the new Chapare arenavirus produces clinical hemorrhagic symptoms similar to those associated with other New World arenaviruses, such as the Junin, Machupo, Guanarito, and Sabia viruses. Genetically, however, Chapare is different from each.

Junin, Machupo and Guanarito viruses have been associated with large outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever. Initial symptoms often include fever, malaise, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and anorexia, followed later by hemorrhagic symptoms. Untreated, more severe neurologic and/or hemorrhagic symptoms may develop, and death occurs in up to 30%.

In this study, the authors first tested for yellow fever and dengue hemorrhagic fevers, but results were negative. Tests for Machupo and other related viruses also were negative. Sequence analysis of specific segments of the virus later confirmed it as a unique member of the Clade B New World Arenaviruses.

Due to the remote nature of the region where the case occurred, only a limited description of a possible cluster of cases in the area was determined.

?Further surveillance and ecological investigations should clarify the nature of the health threat posed by the Chapare virus, and give us better information on the source of human infection,? says CDC virologist Tom Ksiazek of the Special Pathogens Branch.

?We need to learn more about this virus: how it is related to the other arenaviruses, how it causes disease, where it lives in nature,? says Ksiazek. ?Together with our colleagues in Bolivia and Peru, we?re anticipating a more intensive investigation that improves our understanding of the virus, the disease it causes, and its ecology.?

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PLEASE ADD THIS LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://www.plospathogens.org/doi/ppat.1000047 (link will go live on Friday, April 18)

CITATION: Delgado S, Erickson BR, Agudo R, Blair PJ, Vallejo E, et al. (2008) Chapare Virus, a Newly Discovered Arenavirus Isolated from a Fatal Hemorrhagic Fever Case in Bolivia. PLoS Pathog 4(4): e1000047. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000047

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[Shiloh]

Re: Scientists discover new arenavirus associated with hemorrhagic fever

Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article...a.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news1_head_dn13731

New kind of killer virus discovered in Bolivia

01:00 18 April 2008

A team of disease hunters has announced the discovery of a deadly new virus, found in a remote village in South America. Experts say the virus ? named Chapare ? is probably limited to a small swathe of Bolivia, but urbanisation and climate change could expand its range.

"These pathogens will markedly increase the risk of outbreaks with significant loss of human life," says Stefan Kunz, a virologist at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland, who was not part of the study.

On 4 January 2003, a young farmer and tailor from the Bolivian village of Samuzabeti developed fever and headache. Over the following days, the 22-year-old's muscles and joints started throbbing, and he began vomiting and haemorrhaging blood. Two weeks later, he was dead.
Mystery virus

A local doctor, Simon Delgado, had no idea what had killed the patient; tests for known infectious diseases such as dengue and yellow fever turned up negative. As a precaution, Delgado sent specimens to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

There, researchers in the agency?s special pathogens branch unpacked the sample in their most secure laboratory.

"When you suspect hemorrhagic fever, for safety reasons you have to work in a lab with high containment," explains CDC's Pierre Rollin. He and his colleagues donned ventilated full-body suits when working on the deadly virus ? the same precautions taken to study Ebola.
A new beast

The CDC laboratory confirmed they were dealing with something never seen before. Tests on even the most obscure pathogens all turned up negative, Rollin says. When the researchers squirted the patient?s serum sample onto human cells growing in a Petri dish, a virus started multiplying. Rollin?s team dubbed it Chapare, after the victim?s home province.

Further tests confirmed that this Chapare virus was a new beast, part of a deadly family called arenaviruses. In West Africa, the related Lassa virus infects about 300,000 to 500,000 each year, killing 5000, according to the World Health Organization. The South American forms are rarer, but far deadlier.

?Quite often it's a severe disease, maybe in 30% of cases you have a fatal outcome,? Rollin says.

There have been no human cases of Chapare virus since. Researchers at CDC hope to identify the virus?s host ? probably a rodent ? and determine the virus' prevalence.

Charles Fulhorst, an arenavirus expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, says Chapare is the tip of the iceberg. Many new species of virus lurk in South America ? and perhaps North America. ?Just when you think you know what?s out there, another one pops out,? he says.

Rollin agrees and calls for more lab and field work to get a handle on Chapare. "There are lot of arenaviruses we don?t know," he says. "Are they going to be the new pandemic virus that?s going to wipe out the planet? I don?t think so, but they could be a local problem."

Journal reference: PLoS Pathogens (DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000047)