Emerging Viruses (Morgana's Observatory)

Ananke [Click on the name of the moon above for astronomical information.]

Ananke (Greek): Mother of Adrastea. (Moon of Jupiter.)

Emerging and Reemerging Viruses

Dengue
The incubation period is 3-15 days; most common is 5-6 days. Classic Dengue has symptoms of fever, chilly sensation, severe headache, nausea, severe bone and joint pain. Dengue Hemmorrhagic Fever has the same symptoms as the classic form, also with internal bleeding and shock. If the patient survives the infection, it causes a sensitization instead of immunization.
Classic Dengue virus infects approximately 1 million people per year; 15% of the infections progress into Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. It is an arbovirus that is transmitted by Aedes Aegypti. All infections are from a mosquito vector. There was no threat of the virus in the United States until 1985, when a shipment of tires from Japan arrived that contained stagnant water harboring the larvae of the Asian Tiger mosquito, which could withstand frost.

Ebola
The first recorded outbreak was July 1976 in the South Sudan. Second outbreak, September 1976, Zaire. On November 15, 1996, there was an outbreak for which the diagnosis was confirmed and reported by the Associated Press on November 16, 1996. The patient died approximately one week later; forty people who were in contact with the infected person were under observation at the time of this report.
The incubation period is 2-21 days. Symptoms: severe headache, fever, muscle pain, internal hemorrhaging. The virus contains proteins that mimic the proteins found in the coagulation pathway which causes the coagulation cascade to begin. As a result all clotting factors are used up. The spleen and liver harden into a clot. Kidneys clog and fail. The heart becomes overworked. Blood leaks from every orifice and into the intestines, lungs, stomach, eyes, and beneath the skin. The mortality rate is 50-90%; the cause of death is usually heart failure, congestion, or shock. This is a blood-borne disease, and the vector and/or natural host is unknown.
Links:
Crisis in a Hot Zone
Ebola Outbreaks -- Updates
Occurrences of Ebola
2000 Outbreak News (BBC)

Hantavirus
The deadliest United States outbreak was on May 14, 1993 in the Four Corners area. Incubation is similar to Yellow Fever. Symptoms include mild onset with flu-like symptoms that rapidly progresses into kidney failure with intestinal bleeding (which is the hallmark of the disease). The most common symptom in the United States is hypertension with chronic kidney failure. In the Four Corners outbreak, the disease had a very mild onset with flu-like symptoms, developing into lung hemorrhaging causing the infected person to suffocate in his or her own blood. The mortality rate varies with the strain; the most deadly strain had a 62.5% mortality rate.
Transmission is from animal to human. Over 63 bird and rodent vectors have been identified for the 70 known strains of the virus. Scientists have concluded that the outbreak in the Four Corners area was due to a ten-fold increase in the population of the deer mouse and not to a virus mutation.
Links:
All About Hantavirus
Four Corners Hantavirus
The Hantavirus
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome

Hepatitis

Viral hepatitis is a disease caused by a virus that inflames the liver. The disease may manifest itself as either an acute or chronic illness, depending on the duration of inflammation. Acute viral hepatitis is characterized by symptoms that may include: fever, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, dark-colored urine, jaundice.
Typically, acute cases subside as the body's defenses overcome the virus, and the symptoms do not recur. In chronic viral hepatitis, the virus remains in the body after the initial symptoms subside. Often, the infected person may not experience any symptoms. Nonetheless, the liver remains chronically inflamed, increasing the risk of cirrhosis or liver cancer.
Hepatitis A: Often caused by consuming contaminated food or water. Produces only acute hepatitis. Sometimes called infectious hepatitis, although all viral hepatitis is infectious. Vaccine is available and recommended before travel in some parts of the world.
Hepatitis B: Spread in numerous ways including sexual contact, blood products, and contaminated needles. May produce a severe acute hepatitis but only about 5 percent to 10 percent develop chronic hepatitis. Readily preventable by vaccination.
Hepatitis C: A blood-borne virus first identified and successfully tested for in 1989. It is most often transmitted by intravenous drug users sharing contaminated needles. Once infected, few become acutely ill, but up to 90 percent develop a chronic infection and 20 percent of those chronically infected individuals develop cirrhosis of the liver. May be identified by a simple blood test, but no vaccine is currently available.
Hepatitis D: A person must be infected with hepatitis B to acquire this disease. Symptoms similar to hepatitis B.
Hepatitis E: Similar to hepatitis A: acute rather than chronic. Very unusual in the U.S. Has produced large outbreaks in Asia and South America.
Hepatitis F: Appears to produce a type of hepatitis similar to hepatitis C. But scientists are not yet certain it is a separate hepatitis virus.
Hepatitis G: Newly identified. Probably transmitted in a similar fashion to hepatitis C. Scientists are unsure of its impact or how often it produces chronic symptoms or liver disease.
Links:
The ABCs (and DEFGs) of Viral Hepatitis
Hepatitis Developments
Hepatitis Weekly
HepNet: The Hepatitis Information Network
HFI Home Page

Lassa
The first recorded outbreak was in American nurses in Nigeria in 1969. There was an outbreak in the United States in 1989; the victim was a man from Chicago who had been visiting his mother, who was dying of Lassa. Currently, there are approximately 5,000 deaths per year in West Africa.
The incubation period is from 7-21 days. Symptoms include muscle aches with mild fever, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, severely bloodshot eyes and painful rash caused by subdermal hemorrhage, mucus membrane involvement where all tissues become painfully inflamed and begin to bleed. The mortality rate is 70%. Transmission is through Mastomys matalensis (common brown rat).
Links:
Lassa Virus

Marburg
The first recorded outbreak was in August 1967, Marburg, Germany at the Behring Works, a vaccine-producing company. The incubation time is from 7-21 days. Symptoms include muscle aches with mild fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severely bloodshot eyes and painful rash caused by subdermal hemorrhage, mucus membrane involvement where all tissues become painfully inflamed and begin to bleed. Ten days after onset, the victim begins to vomit and defecate blood. The mortality rate is 25%. There is a possibility that it is airborne; however, that has not been proven.
Links:
Marburg and Ebola Viruses

West Nile Virus
West Nile virus was first isolated from a woman in the West Nile District of Uganda in 1937. The ecology was characterized in Egypt in the 1950s. The virus became recognized as a cause of severe human meningoencephaliti (inflammation of the spinal cord and brain) in elderly patients during an outbreak in Israel in 1957. Equine disease was first noted in Egypt and France in the early 1960s. The appearance of WNV in North America in 1999, with encephalitis reported in humans and horses, may be an important milestone in the evolving history of this virus.
Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds, which may circulate the virus in their blood for a few days. After an incubation period of 10 days to 2 weeks, infected mosquitoes can then transmit West Nile virus to humans and animals while biting to take blood. The virus is located in the mosquito's salivary glands. During blood feeding, the virus is may be injected into the animal or human, where it may multiply, possibly causing illness.
Most infections are mild, and symptoms include fever, headache, and body aches, often with skin rash and swollen lymph glands. More severe infection may be marked by headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, paralysis and, rarely, death.
[From: The Centers for Disease Control]

Virus Information Links

Arboviruses
Bugs in the News
Current Outbreaks
Do Viruses Cause Mental Illness?
Emerging Infectious Diseases
Emerging Viruses
Mayo Health Oasis
National Center for Infectious Diseases
Pasteur Institute
UK Department of Health
Virus List
World Health Organization

Books
The Coming Plague
by Laurie Garrett
A Dancing Matrix: How Science Confronts Emerging Viruses
by Robin Henig
Deadly Feasts
by Richard Rhodes
Dictionary of Epidemiology
by John Last, J. Abramson
Ebola: A Documentary Novel
by William T. Close
Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence
by George C. Cohn
Everything You Need to Know About Diseases
by Marcia Andrews
Plagues and Peoples
by William McNeill
Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues
by Frank Ryan
Yellow Fever, Black Goddess
by Christopher Wills

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