Lassa Fever: An Old World Arenavirus Essay -- essays research papers

Lassa Fever An Old World ArenavirusABSTRACTA brief summary of lassa fever, its history, pathology and effects on the innate populations. Also, lassa fever in the context of newly emergingdiseases.LASSA FEVER     On January 12, 1969, a missionary nun, working in the small town ofLassa, Nigeria, began complaining of a backache. Thinking she had merely pulleda muscle, she ignored the pain and went on about her business. After a week,however, the nurse had a throat so sore and so filled with ulcers, she couldntswallow. Thinking she was suffering from one of the many bacterial diseasesendemic to the area, her sisters administered every antibiotic they had on storein the towns church of the Brethren Mission Hospital. But, the antibiotics didnothing. Her fever escalated, she was severely dehydrated and blotches,hemorrhages, were appearing on her skin. She began to swell and became delirious,so they shipped her to a larger hospital, where one day later she went intocon vulsions and died. After a nurse who was tending to the sister came down withthe same symptoms and died, the doctors in the hospital began to suspect it wasa disease heretofore unseen by any of them. necropsy on the nurse showedsignificant damage to every organ in the body, the heart was stopped up, withloads of blood cells and platelets piled well into the arteries and veins.Fluids and blood filled the lungs. exsanguinous cells and lipids clogged the liver andspleen. The kidneys were so congested with dead cells and free proteins they hadceased to function. Dissecting the lymph nodes, they discovered that they werecompletely empty every white blood cell had been utilized in a futile attemptto stave off the unknown microbe. A few days later, a prominent western viralresearcher assure the unknown disease and the hunt for the microbe thatcaused lassa fever, began in earnest.(Garrett, 1994)     Lassa fever is a virus belonging to the family Arenaviridae. GenusAre navirus, although being around for about 60 years in the form of lymphocyticchoriomeningitis, has recently been brought to the publics attention because ofthe large number of species known as "emerging viruses" in the genera. Thegenera consists mostly of new field viruses, among them the Junin, Machupo andGuanarito viruses, which cause, respective... ...verage is around 20%.(Sanford, 1992)     To date there has been no intensive mapping of the extent of virulentLassa distribution in Africa and there is no oversight for spread orcontraction of the established highly endemic zones.(Southern, 1996) It took anumber of sick westerners to grab the attention of the developed nations beforethey began to investigate this illness. straight that we have discovered it and areconvinced it is not an immediate danger, we have retreated to our own nations,without so much as a single rodent eradication program. As a result the diseasehas spread to a much larger endemi c area. The feeling is that it could becontrolled by proper healthy and educational measures, but the developed worldchooses to leave the dying and forgotten continent, Africa, to suffer yetanother vicious and deadly disease.LITERATURE CITEDGarrett, Laurie, 1994, "Into the Woods", The approach shot Plague Newly EmergingDiseases in a World out of Balance, 71 -99.Southern, Peter, 1996, "Arenaviridae The Viruses and Their Replication", FieldsVirology, 1505 -1520.Sanford, Jay, "Lassa Fever", The Merck Manual, 218 -219.