NBC: New virus in Africa looks like rabies, acts like Ebola

[China]

New virus in Africa looks like rabies, acts like Ebola

A virus that killed two teenagers in Congo in 2009 is a completely new type, related to rabies but causing the bleeding and rapid death that makes Ebola infection so terrifying, scientists reported on Thursday. They’re searching for the source of the virus, which may be transmitted by insects or bats.

The new virus is being named Bas-Congo virus, for the area where it was found. Researchers are finding more and more of these new viruses, in part because new tests make it possible, but also in the hope of better understanding them so they can prevent pandemics of deadly disease.

The virus infected a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl in the same village in Congo in 2009. They didn’t stand a chance, says Joseph Fair of Metabiota, a company that investigates pathogens. Fair is in the Democratic Republic of Congo now, under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to help battle an ongoing Ebola outbreak.

“They expired within three days,” Fair said in a telephone interview. “It was a very rapid killer.”


Bas-congo virus

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[Teller]

I dunno why, but that pic gives me the willies.

Creepy stuff.

[China]

Maybe because you imagine it wiggling inside of you tearing your cells apart from the inside out until you slowly bleed to death internally in extreme agony.


Or not.

[Ellis]

It makes the Microbiology class I'm taking all the more interesting.

[Zguy28]

Scary stuff, especially when you have kids.

[Teller]

Maybe because you imagine it wiggling inside of you tearing your cells apart from the inside out until you slowly bleed to death internally in extreme agony.

Jerk.

Seriously though, stuff like this, and even MRSA is just horrifying to me.

[Sticksboi05]

MRSA sucks but is at least treatable and curable. Anything related to ebola/rabies has to be exponentially worse. Two pretty much untreatable diseases (well, rabies if you are foolish enough to not get the vaccine after being bitten).