ZKEA

Emerging Diseases : Biological Terrorism : Biological Warfare

Archived News
Week ending June 25th, 2006

The University of California and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which are already pushing for federal court approval to store and study dangerous microbes at the Livermore lab, have expressed interest in building a second bio-defense lab near Tracy -- a lab that could experiment with even deadlier bugs.

Critics say approval might allow such a facility to be a storehouse and research center for particularly virulent diseases such as Ebola, dengue fever, Lassa fever and other illnesses for which there are no known cures.

"To propose location of (such a potentially hazardous) facility in the San Francisco Bay Area is truly beyond comprehension, because all it would take is a single earthquake to unleash billions of deadly pathogens, for which there is no known cure, on an unsuspecting public," said Oakland attorney Stephan Volker, whose client Tri-Valley CARES of Livermore, a leading activist group and lab critic, has already sued over the first bio-defense lab -- and might take legal action over the second proposal.

UC and lab officials said this week that the second lab would focus on agricultural diseases such as foot-and-mouth, an economically catastrophic epidemic. Lawrence B. Coleman, a physicist and UC's vice provost for research, told The Chronicle that a research facility designed for that purpose would be valuable because "there are a lot of diseases that could do incredible damage to California agriculture."

But, if approved and funded by the Department of Homeland Security, the 50,000-square-foot facility near Tracy could come with a ranking of "Biosafety Level Four..

If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in South Texas. Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients. Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

Patients say that's the worst symptom - strange fibers that pop out of your skin in different colors.

"He'd have attacks and fibers would come out of his hands and fingers, white, black and sometimes red. Very, very painful," said Lisa Wilson, whose son Travis had Morgellon's disease.

While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.

"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," Savely said.

While Savely sees this as a legitimate disease, there are many doctors who simply refuse to acknowledge it exists, because of the bizarre symptoms patients are diagnosed as delusional.

"Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all - down to the most minute detail - saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."

Travis Wilson developed Morgellons just over a year ago. He called his mother in to see a fiber coming out of a lesion.

"It looked like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long and it was sticking out of his chest..

A campground at Natural Bridges National Monument has been closed because of bubonic plague detected among field mice and chipmunks.

Plague also has been found this spring in rodent populations at Mesa Verde National Park and Colorado National Monument.

National Park Service officials said there never has been a reported human case of bubonic plague originating from the parks or national monuments.

"We come down on the conservative side when it comes to closing campgrounds," said Joe Winkelmaier of the U.S. Public Health Service. "We just like to be sure when it comes to plague."

Several weeks ago, park rangers noticed a large number of dead field mice at Natural Bridges, about 40 miles west of Blanding. Chief Ranger Ralph Jones showed that tests indicated they died from the plague...

A woman who arrived in London on a flight from Africa yesterday is reported to have died from the deadly and contagious ebola virus. Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old Briton.

The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.

Before boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow she visited a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms.

She was allowed to fly, but during Flight VS602 to the UK she suffered a violent fit which left her unconscious.

Cabin crew and passengers rushed to her aid but towards the end of the flight she began to vomiting.

When the Airbus A340-600, carrying 267 passengers and crew, touchdown at Heathrow she was rushed to nearby Hillingdon Hospital, West London.

Her symptoms matched those of the viral haemorraghing fever, ebola. The results of a post mortem are awaited.

Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who came into contact with the woman have been told to monitor their health. One said: "We are now terrified what we may have caught."

Deadly ebola is often characterised ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is extremely worried about a cluster of recent human deaths from the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu. Seven people from the same family in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, died from the disease earlier this month.

WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said there was no sign of diseased poultry in the immediate area.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that the virus spread from human to human, Mr Cordingley said.

But he emphasised that there was no indication the virus had mutated.

Experts are worried that if it does mutate, the H5N1 strain could become more easily transmitted between humans, leading to a worldwide pandemic of the killer disease.

The H5N1 virus has already killed more than 120 people worldwide since 2003. It has also devastated poultry stocks.

The majority of deaths have occurred in Asia, but cases in people and birds have also been recorded in Europe and Africa.

Almost all human infections so far are thought to have been caused by direct contact with sick poultry.

Mr Cordingley said that the Sumatran cases presented a major puzzle, as they were the largest cluster of human cases to date.

"[This] is probably the most worrying incident so far since bird flu started nearly three years ago and we can't find any obvious source of infection. We can find no sign of infected chickens; no sign of the virus in the environment around where they live," he said.

All seven people who died were members of the same family. An eighth family member is also thought to have the disease. So far investigators know that the initial victim was a woman..

The origin of HIV has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon, researchers report. A virus called SIVcpz (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus from chimps) was thought to be the source, but had only been found in a few captive animals.

Now, an international team of scientists has identified a natural reservoir of SIVcpz in animals living in the wild.

All discoveries which relate to the history and origins of HIV could be of value to the vital work being carried out by scientists in developing a HIV vaccine Yusef Azad, National Aids Trust

It is thought that people hunting chimpanzees first contracted the virus - and that cases were first seen in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo - the nearest urban area - in 1930.

Scientists believe the rareness of cases - and the fact that symptoms of Aids differ significantly between individuals - explains why it was another 50 years before the virus was named.

This team of researchers, including experts from the universities of Nottingham, Montpellier and Alabama, have been working for a decade to identify the source of HIV.

While SIVcpz was only identified in captive animals, the possibility remained that yet another species could be the natural reservoir of both HIV and SIVcpz.

It had only been possible to detect SIVcpz using blood test - which meant that only captive animals could be studied.

This study, carried out alongside experts from the Project Prevention du Sida au Cameroun (PRESICA) in Cameroon, involved analysing chimpanzee faeces, collected from the forest floor in remote jungle areas. This was useful because University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers had been able to determine the genetic sequences of the chimpanzee viruses - which could then be searched for in the faecal samples.

Lab tests detected SIVcpz specific antibodies and genetic information linked to the virus in up to 35% of chimpanzees..