- A disease outbreak in India in February and March could
be the first sign of an entirely new virus, as lethal as Ebola, researchers
believe.
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- The outbreak occurred in Siliguri in the Himalayan foothills
and killed about 70% of the people infected.
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- Over 100 people are thought to have contracted the illness.
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- Nihar Ranjan Haldar, a neurologist in private practice
in Siliguri, saw the first seven patients. "Most of them had coma,
and fever. They went into fits, and started dying. In the beginning they
all died, but it slowed down and at the end of five weeks, we saw no more
deaths."
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- Since the deaths stopped, Dr Haldar has been working
with other investigators trying to find the cause of the disease. He presented
their findings on Tuesday at the World Congress of Neurology in London,
UK - and so far, they know very little.
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- Hide and seek
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- They presume the disease is caused by a virus as they
found no sign of parasites or bacteria, and as the symptoms to some degree
resemble those of Japanese bee encephalitis. But if it is a virus, it has
remained resolutely hidden.
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- "The local investigations we have done with cerebro-spinal
fluid, with blood - everything was negative," Dr Haldar told New Scientist.
"So we enlisted the help of several national research institutes.
So far they have not found any virus which has already been reported. It
could be a new virus."
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- "It's certainly serious - the mortality rate of
70% puts it level with Ebola or Marburg," says Professor Thiravat
Hemachudha, a neurologist from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand
who chaired the conference session. "It's highly contagious, and it
must be something unfamiliar to us."
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- The World Health Organisation and the US Centres for
Disease Control have both been involved in searching for answers to this
riddle, but Dr Haldar called for more intensive efforts.
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- The identity of the virus, he said, is only part of the
mystery. "We know very little about how it behaves.
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- We tried to track it - but we could not find the vector
or the mode of transmission. Also we have no idea about the origin. The
people who survived must have antibodies to whatever it is, and we need
to study them urgently."
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- © Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 2001
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