New virus on rampage in Uganda
Jun 13, 2006
RESEARCH published recently revealed a new threat of a disease outbreak from an up-to-now little known virus known as the chikungunya virus. The study in PLoS Medicine says the virus had recently become rampant, infecting nearly one million people ‘in an unprecedented outbreak that is still raging
By Hilary Bainemigisha
RESEARCH published recently revealed a new threat of a disease outbreak from an up-to-now little known virus known as the chikungunya virus. The study in PLoS Medicine says the virus had recently become rampant, infecting nearly one million people ‘in an unprecedented outbreak that is still raging’.
PLoS suggests that the chikungunya virus could have mutated in a way that makes it better at infecting the mosquitoes that spread the virus to people.
But the assistant commissioner for surveillance and epidemics, Dr Talisuna Ambrose, says there is no cause for alarm. “The outbreak is still very far in the Reunion and Seychelles region and only broke into news when some European tourists developed some malaria-like disease after touring the region.â€
According to SciDev report, the virus has spread from Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean to nearby Madagascar and Mauritius. There is fear it could spread to Tanzania where it was first recorded in 1952 and gets its name from a Swahili word meaning ‘that which bends up’ — a reference to the stooped posture of infected people whose joints swell.
Talisuna says it first reported in Uganda in the 1960s but disappeared.
The virus causes fever and joint pain but it is not usually fatal but SciDev has reported some deaths occurring during the current outbreak, raising concerns that the virus’s genetic changes have also made it more deadly.
PLoS researchers, led by Sylvain Brisse of France’s Pasteur Institute, say that the chikungunya outbreak began with a strain related to East African forms of the virus that then developed into several distinct variants.
The dominant strain now differs genetically from those involved in earlier outbreaks and this, say the researchers, could explain why the virus has become more aggressive. In particular, they say, two changes to its structure could make the virus more likely to enter mosquito cells and replicate after the insect has fed on the blood of an infected person.
RESEARCH published recently revealed a new threat of a disease outbreak from an up-to-now little known virus known as the chikungunya virus. The study in PLoS Medicine says the virus had recently become rampant, infecting nearly one million people ‘in an unprecedented outbreak that is still raging’.
PLoS suggests that the chikungunya virus could have mutated in a way that makes it better at infecting the mosquitoes that spread the virus to people.
But the assistant commissioner for surveillance and epidemics, Dr Talisuna Ambrose, says there is no cause for alarm. “The outbreak is still very far in the Reunion and Seychelles region and only broke into news when some European tourists developed some malaria-like disease after touring the region.â€
According to SciDev report, the virus has spread from Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean to nearby Madagascar and Mauritius. There is fear it could spread to Tanzania where it was first recorded in 1952 and gets its name from a Swahili word meaning ‘that which bends up’ — a reference to the stooped posture of infected people whose joints swell.
Talisuna says it first reported in Uganda in the 1960s but disappeared.
The virus causes fever and joint pain but it is not usually fatal but SciDev has reported some deaths occurring during the current outbreak, raising concerns that the virus’s genetic changes have also made it more deadly.
PLoS researchers, led by Sylvain Brisse of France’s Pasteur Institute, say that the chikungunya outbreak began with a strain related to East African forms of the virus that then developed into several distinct variants.
The dominant strain now differs genetically from those involved in earlier outbreaks and this, say the researchers, could explain why the virus has become more aggressive. In particular, they say, two changes to its structure could make the virus more likely to enter mosquito cells and replicate after the insect has fed on the blood of an infected person.