Ebola Ravaging People and Pigs, But Is It the Same Virus?
In the past month, reports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Phillipines are detailing the troubling accounts of a resurgence of the Ebola Virus.
First, the Congo…
Nine people have died so far out of 21 people infected with the deadly Ebola virus, according to the Health Ministry in the DR Congo. Doctors without Borders has a higher estimate of 33 people infected That may not seem like such a big deal, except that Ebola tends to kill 90% of those infected. This is hardly the first time that Ebola has struck the West African nation.
Ebola was first documented in 1976 in Zaire, which was what the DR Congo at that time. The disease also afflicted people in the Sudan. Ebola is named after the Ebola River, which is very near the site where the disease was found. Below is a chart 2003 showing the number of people in red infected versus the number of deaths in black, appropriately enough.
If you have been paying attention to the news, you may have heard that some pigs in the Phillipines have also tested positively for Ebola. This needs some clarifying, as the pigs, or hogs, are infected with the Ebola-Reston Virus.
Ebola-Reston may be a subtype of Ebola, but so far, that is still to be definitely determined by researchers. Ebola-Reston gets its name from its similarity to Ebola, obviously, as it is a filovirus as is Ebola. Filoviruses are particularly nasty diseases in which long, slender RNA viruses attack the host’s blood vessels, causing them to rupture and at the same time prevent coagulation, which means that the victim will not stop bleeding.
Ebola-Reston gets the “Reston” from a Reston, Virginia lab where researchers first isolated the filovirus. So far, Ebola-Reston Virus has not caused serious illness in humans, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t. Previous to the recent outbreak, Ebola-Reston was thought only to infect monkeys. The virus’ move into the porcine world could be a normal move of the disease of which little is still known, or it could point to the much-sought “reservoir” of the disease, which has yet to be discovered.
The UN is beginning to investigate the Ebola-Reston virus in pigs…stay tuned.
Ebola, Ebola-Reston, virus, fliovirus, Congo, DR Congo, Zaire, Reston, Virginia
March 27th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
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