Killer Virus ID'd In Africa

Similar To Ebola, The "Lujo" Virus Originates In Rodents

(AP)  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.

It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.

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

A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online Thursday on in PLoS Pathogens.

The outbreak started in September, when a female travel agent who lives on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.

She was airlifted to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died.

A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Johannesburg and died. The three others infected were health care workers in Johannesburg.

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.

The name given to the virus -; "Lujo" - stems from Lusaka and Johannesburg, the cities where it was first identified.

Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch. Other symptoms include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.

Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at CDC in Atlanta. Tests determined it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.

The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient - a Johannesburg nurse. It's not clear if the medicine made a difference or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she fully recovered, Nichol said.

The research is a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of a few days - a process that used to take weeks or longer.

Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.

[IrishWench01]

Why can't Africans help themselves? When do these people stop being helpless, when?
Posted by goodusa at 4:43 PM..........

"These people" as you say, were doing just fine until others began invading their lands. In fact because of this, they have been unable to evolve as a people or country, in their own way and in their own time. They have been pushed about, had their lands stolen, their cultures and traditions disrupted and their entire way of life dismembered.

A very typical and prevelant scenario of the encroachment by the Europeans.

[Dgunner]

There is no such thing as predjudice in a foxhole and there is no God east of kenya.

[democracy1]

You have issues to deal with. Get help.

Life is to short. Get help soon.
Posted by rushlimpdrug at 8:06 PM : May 29, 2009

If you feel that way after what i wrote, I'd say that YOU are the one who has issues.

Like being a self-centered spoiled brat. Get help for that. ?If you can?

[rushlimpdrug]

Posted by democracy1 at 7:06 PM


You have issues to deal with. Get help.

Life is to short. Get help soon.

[democracy1]

Hey - billions are given each year to many of these countries by other governments and charitable organizations to help overcome poverty and ignorance. Many in these nations don't want to advance, instead, they're content remaining backwards, ignorant and impoverished. Their cultures are a hindrance to their advancement and evolving. Too many who regularly receive assistance refuse to take personal responsibility for themselves and do something about their own plight in life because it's easier to expect handouts.
Posted by credibility2 at 11:34 AM : May 29, 2009

How much of that money is sucked up by the political elite and warlords and how much actually ends up going to the general populace? Is there a problem with that? ABSOLUTELY! And I'd like to see a solution to ending that.

There is a great deal of political corruption in Africa PRECISELY because the common people are so poor--they have very little power to actually make a difference. It's a very complicated situation and from our privileged position here in a wealthy country, it's fine to attack the corrupt political leaders, but another thing to criticize the average citizen. What would you do if you were in THEIR shoes? Just asking.

You suggested in another post that no one is keeping them from leaving places of corrupt government. You are so ignorant! They can't move away because they are too poor to do that!

Those who DO attempt to move away have to carry their meager belongings on their backs or their heads and walk for hundreds of miles in horrible conditions, with very little water or food, with the possibility of being murdered as they do so.

I'd like to see what YOU would be able to do under the same circumstances, but you just seem like another person of privilege who wants to criticize those who live under circumstances that you will NEVER have to face in your lifetime.

And your post does more than hint at a bit of racism on your part when you constantly refer to "whites" versus "blacks". Why can't you just see "rich" or "poor"?

You wouldn't be able to survive a moment in those people's shoes, under circumstances that you've never had to face even once in your lifetime. And maybe I wouldn't either, but at least I can admit it.

It's really easy to criticize when all you have to do is "talk the talk" without having to "walk the walk", isn't it?

Not to mention that your statement about Africans' involvement in slavery may be true, but you then (conveniently) completely ignore the following three centuries of white colonialism and (continuing) exploitation of "The Dark Continent."

[whitemale08]

Why can't Africans help themselves? When do these people stop being helpless, when?
Posted by goodusa at 4:43 PM : May 29, 2009 --

...when you stop being ignorant.

Western civilization is crumbling around you as we speak and you still believe that we're better then Africans when we looted these countries and gave them absolutley worthless Federal Reserve Notes, told them that they can't spend it but only pay it back and any left over can only be used to buy Treasury bills.

Another ignorant fool posts another ignorant comment.

[rushlimpdrug]

I see some have yet to learn the lesson that anyone being the least bit
critical of anything African is automatically labelled a racist and/or dumb
redneck.

and so it goes . . . .

Hail the black race - least I be called a racist.

[whitemale08]

they just over looked that part of history so they could try to bilk us out of our own rescources on food stamp day.
Posted by Kuei1248 at 1:29 PM : May 29, 2009 --

Your comments make you a disgrace not only to the white race but to the human race.

You have no idea how empires are maintained.

They are maintained by the rulers funding both sides of a conflict whether it be racial, religous, ethnic or political ---- Democrat vs. Republican, white vs. black, tribe vs. tribe, Protestant vs. Catholic.

If you look at every conflict that's happening around the world, you can trace back to the British Empire of Financiers, (I'm not talking bout England), from Darfur to Tamil Tigers to Israel vs. Palestinians.

The British Empire needs conflicts so their Wall Street/City of London financial empire can use that speculation to loot countries, steal from each other and bring down entire governments through sanctions....all based upon the Rothschilds principal of: "buy on the fact -- sell on the rumor".

[Kuei1248]

" and soon we will all be slaves."

We already are. some of us just fail to see the truth.

[whitemale08]

them while they remain idle and oblivious to their own destiny. Truth and honesty sometimes has to be harsh.
Posted by credibility2 at 12:52 PM : May 29, 2009 --

Again your lack of knowledge astounds me,

1. Blacks did not introduce slavery to the white man, the British East India Company built their empire on the slave trade and what ever country did not have slaves they had serfs, India for example.
Although slavery has been around since the Egyptian empire, slaves were never traded or introduced throughout the world until the British empire came centuries later.

2. Charity is not the same as allowing a country to be truly sovereign to use their own credit to develop themselves instead of being tricked into a 'usury' system of private-central-banks like the Federal Reserve System and IMF/World Parasites.
If we traded goods and resources between sovereing governments instead of gigantic international corporations trading amongst themselves, then these countries would not have to borrow money from the IMF/World Parasites.

3. 'Power-monger-black African tribes' are no different then Sicillian and Aryans or Irish. That's totally irrelavent when we are all dominated by fuedal system called the Anglo-Dutch monetary system that we have been living under since 1913.
When you stupidly give paper money an 'intrinsic value' you in turn strip the 'intrinsic value' from all living things and precious resources for needed for civilization.

4. Nobody is blaming the white man since slavery and serfdom has existed in some form since Cain and Able. What you have to understand that right now we live under an invisible empire, call it the Anglo-American or Anglo-Dutch financial empire, it's run by oligarchs who are mostly white financiers such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers.

And like any empire, whether obvious or not, it has rulers and it has slaves and it has serfs, me and you are the serfs, the rest of the world are the slaves, the financiers are the rulers (not the politicians), and soon we will all be slaves.

[hologram5]

First: credibility2, ours and other governments keep the third world countries as they are for exploitation, don't be a fool.
second, most of the reason that africa has no natural resources is because during the Ice age that was most likely the only continent NOT covered by ice and as such, everything left alive was living there and destroyed the land.

[credibility2]

whitemale08-nothing has ever stopped any third-world person from advancing except themselves, ignorance and illiteracy, even the latter has been attempted and with no success. These types remain and immobile and oblivious to civilization advancing, despite the billions that governments and charitable organizations have poured into parts of Africa and elsewhere. And on the matter of slaves to American, if anyone is ignorant it is those who fail to acknowledge that slavery was something borne out of the power-monger black African tribals. They were the ones who introduced slavery to white Europeans and sold their own kind to them. It's futile to keep pumping billions into areas that will never improve because they don't want to. True, governments are corrupt, but no one is stopping any of them from leaving the areas and trying to better themselves. They leave but don't go far enough and expect the rest of the developed world to feel sorry for them and continue pouring money and resources. This has been done for hundreds of years with absolutely no improvement. This isn't the white man's fault any more and it's a flimsy excuse to try and infer that it is. At some point blacks in these countries, or those in other third-world countries have to finally accept responsibility for their own destiny and do something about it and stop relying on the rest of the civilized world to rescue them from their own folly. Why aren't those who go into these areas supposedly helping these types trying to truly educate and teach them how to use some form of birth control and to stop producing populations that can't be sustained given their land's inability to support them? Or teaching them how to grow different crops that will create an economy, especially be given the equipment? These areas have been assisted repeatedly and nothing changes. Perhaps these types expect outsiders to come in, take up shop and do everything for them while they remain idle and oblivious to their own destiny. Truth and honesty sometimes has to be harsh.

[whitemale08]

receive assistance refuse to take personal responsibility for themselves and do something about their own plight in life because it's easier to expect handouts.
Posted by credibility2 at 11:34 AM : May 29, 2009 --

Your comments are so so blatanly ignorant.

You have no idea how the Federal Reserve System and the IMF/World Parasites have looted Africa for decades, how the British colonized the continent to steal precious resources and trade slaves back-and-forth to the Americas.

You just ignore completely the policy of the United States and England where Henry Kissinger wrote a National Security Document in 1971 where he stated the goal of keeping Africa 'in debt to IMF' to restrict the resources for 'development' and to quote: "...preserve the resources for the Anglo-American countries as their populations would grow and look to more selfish interests of using those resources for themselves".

Please before you post any comment in this forum, do your homework and understand that the world does not revolve around your pasty white _ss.

[erasmus111]

"Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. "

As lethal as they are, at least we don't have to worry about them ever becoming a Pandemic. They are not airborne viruses.

[erasmus111]

By anonymous, I mean you're not even revealing a screen name. At least I have a screen name and use it.
Posted by credibility2 at 11:41 AM : May 29, 2009

When he/she re-registered after the big change, I think that there was a mistake and the name never appeared. So that person would have to re-register again with a new name.
But that isn't stopping them from ending their post with their name, they are just choosing not to. Personally, I think that is what they should be doing.

[credibility2]

By anonymous, I mean you're not even revealing a screen name. At least I have a screen name and use it.

[credibility2]

Hey - billions are given each year to many of these countries by other governments and charitable organizations to help overcome poverty and ignorance. Many in these nations don't want to advance, instead, they're content remaining backwards, ignorant and impoverished. Their cultures are a hindrance to their advancement and evolving. Too many who regularly receive assistance refuse to take personal responsibility for themselves and do something about their own plight in life because it's easier to expect handouts.

You said one thing of merit: Much of the poverty and disease in Africa could be avoided.
Of course, that would require education and other assistance. Are you in favor of that?

As to the accusation of my being "anonymous": Pot. Kettle. Black.

[credibility2]

Aw, too bad that an anonymous poster didn't like my truthful comment and is offended by it; boo-hoo-hoo. Africa as a third-world continent, has many of its inhabitants being illiterate and backwards, and filthy disease breeding due to a number of reasons, all of which could be avoided. And in science, there is such a thing as a natural selection process. You're a ginormous ignoramus and nincompoop.

[cbsblogger]

Maybe I've read too many bio-weapon conspiratorial books, but you must wonder if some evil country or group is using Africa as a test bed for lethal viruses? It seems that everything originates there. But it won't stop there.