Scientists identify new lethal virus in Africa

[steven johnson]

Here's another Ebola-like virus with bleeding in the gums, fever, shock, coma and organ failure.

It is distantly related to Lassa fever, another African virus, and ribavirin, which treats Lassa fever, seems to help.

The Associated Press

Thu, May 28, 2009 (5:06 p.m.)

Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall.

Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.

"This one is really, really aggressive" he said of the virus.

Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.
"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.


Scientists identify new lethal virus in Africa

[madeline_con]

1. "spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids"

Why would these people have "bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites"? What were they injected with/for? Only one received drugs to treat the disease. I've read there is widespread disease research in Africa. :shrug:

Edited to add:

Zambia has a large rersearch hospital, coincidentally.

Merck did research in Africa on rthe West nile virus, whose victims often die of menangitis, which just happens to be prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa and Western Medical Malpractices

Africa has harbored a number of high-profile Western medical miscreants who have intentionally administered deadly agents under the guise of providing health care or conducting research. In March 2000, Werner Bezwoda, a cancer researcher at South Africa's Witwatersrand University, was fired after conducting medical experiments involving very high doses of chemotherapy on black breast-cancer patients, possibly without their knowledge or consent. In Zimbabwe, in 1995, Richard McGown, a Scottish anesthesiologist, was accused of five murders and convicted in the deaths of two infant patients whom he injected with lethal doses of morphine. And Dr. Michael Swango, ultimately convicted of murder after pleading guilty to killing three American patients with lethal injections of potassium, is suspected of causing the deaths of 60 other people, many of them in Zimbabwe and Zambia during the 1980s and '90s. (Dr. Swango was never tried on the African charges.)

These medical killers are well known throughout Africa, but the most notorious is Wouter Basson, a former head of Project Coast, South Africa's chemical and biological weapons unit under apartheid. Dr. Basson was charged with killing hundreds of blacks in South Africa and Namibia, from 1979 to 1987, many via injected poisons. He was never convicted in South African courts, even though his lieutenants testified in detail and with consistency about the medical crimes they conducted against blacks.

http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=367:africa-and-western-medical-malpractices&catid=117:science&Itemid=361

[TZ]

2. Umm its an Arena virus...thats a totally different class of

virus than WNV.
I'm assuming "needle injection sites" are from drug use.
As for jumping to conclusion about Merck..they do alot of research in Africa including helping with an NIH study on experimental malaria vaccines AND almost all of it is overseen very closely by the WHO.
Put your tin hat away. It has NO scientific validity. You do understand that new viri emerge on a regular basis just through normal evolutionary patterns right? (HIV from SIV, Marburg from Ebola). Africa is notorious for emerging infectious diseases..:eyes:

[trotsky]

3. No way man!

Merck is running experiments to see how deadly its latest virus creation is! It's the TROOOTH I swear!!!11!

[Posteritatis]

4. I wish I could be surprised that the first comment on this alleged just that (nt)

[trotsky]

6. Sad but true - it's to be completely expected on DU. n/t

[madeline_con]

5. You're assuming something based on conjecture....

and accuse me of wearing a tin hat? That's rich.

Fact is, you don't know why they had injection sites. The article stated that only one was treated.

[Posteritatis]

7. And you're assuming several things based on conjecture (nt)