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Chapare Virus (Deadly Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever)

EnolaGaia

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In case you're unimpressed with COVID-19 as a major health crisis, there's a newly emerging health horror that might grab your interest - the Chapare virus.

This is a viral hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola. After a teaser debut involving a single patient in 2004, it disappeared. In 2019 it infected 5 people, of whom 3 died.

Analysis of the latest outbreak demonstrates the Chapare virus is now capable of being transmitted among humans.
Deadly hemorrhagic fever in Bolivia can spread between people

The hemorrhagic fever had only appeared in one patient before 2019.

A deadly animal virus that causes fevers, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding gums, skin rash and pain behind the eyes can now spread between people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Monday (Nov. 16).

Until now, there had been only one confirmed case of Chapare virus, an Ebola-like illness that turned up in the rural Bolivian province of Chapare in 2004 and then disappeared. But in 2019, at least five more people caught the bug, according to research now made public. The virus spread from person to person through bodily fluids in a region near Bolivia's capital city of La Paz, killing three people. There are no active outbreaks of Chapare in 2020, and even in the event of further outbreaks the virus would be unlikely to cause a pandemic, according to virus experts.

There are reasons to be concerned about the news, however. Three of the five confirmed patients from the 2019 outbreak were health care workers, according to a CDC statement; a "young medical resident," an ambulance medic and a gastroenterologist all contracted Chapare after contact with bodily fluids from infected patients. Two of them died.

Hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola rarely spread as widely as respiratory illnesses like the flu or COVID-19, Colin Carlson, a Georgetown University researcher who studies zoonotic diseases, told Live Science. That's because hemorrhagic fever symptoms typically appear soon after infections (as opposed to the long incubation periods of respiratory illnesses), and direct contact with bodily fluids is generally necessary to catch a hemorrhagic disease. But outbreaks can devastate health care systems, with huge numbers of health care workers becoming sick after treating infected patients. ...

Scientists and the public tend to think of deadly hemorrhagic diseases as African or South Asian, Carlson said. But Chapare's case shows they can turn up anywhere in the world. ...

"The reality is hemorrhagic viruses are everywhere, the species that carry them are everywhere, and we haven't had a really big run in like this here," he said. "This makes you sit up and say 'Oh, this is usually the sort of thing we get 10 years before something bigger along these lines.'"

That 10 year figure is a rough approximation. But viruses that eventually become major infectious diseases tend to make a few forays into human populations over the course of decades before really catching on. ...

FULL STORY:
https://www.livescience.com/chapare-virus-human-transmission.htm
 
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Results of the initial investigation mentioned above have now been reported at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). This article includes some details and facts based on that presentation.
Chapare Virus: Evidence Shows Human Transmission in Deadly Outbreak of Mysterious Disease

At TropMed2020, scientists describe rush to gauge risks of Chapare virus, an emerging hemorrhagic fever seen previously in only one patient.

Researchers have discovered that a deadly virus found in Bolivia can spread from person to person in healthcare settings, raising potential concerns of additional outbreaks in the future, according to new findings presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). The research also provides preliminary evidence regarding the species of rodent that carries the virus and may spread it to people or to other animals that can infect humans. ...

Chapare belongs to a group of viruses called arenaviruses. They include dangerous pathogens such as Lassa virus, which causes thousands of deaths annually in West Africa, and Machupo virus, which has caused deadly outbreaks in Bolivia. Like those pathogens, Chapare virus can cause hemorrhagic fevers–a condition also seen in Ebola patients that can produce severe problems across multiple organs, leaving patients struggling to survive. Cossaboom noted that patients in the 2019 Chapare outbreak suffered fevers, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding gums, skin rash and pain behind the eyes. There is no specific treatment, so patients are treated mainly with intravenous fluids and other supportive care. ...

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/chapare-vi...ion-in-deadly-outbreak-of-mysterious-disease/
 
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