June 2016 – HEALTH – The
last time, we heard about a “mysterious hemorrhagic fever” in a
country, it was February 2014. The outbreak was in Guinea. And by the
time doctors had pinpointed the culprit, Ebola was spiraling out of
control in West Africa. The situation in South Sudan today is a far cry
from that in West Africa a few years ago. But it’s still concerning, the
World Health Organization said. So far, there have been 51 cases —
including 10 deaths — from an unknown disease in the northern part of
South Sudan. The main symptoms of the disease are similar to those seen
with Ebola: unexplained bleeding, fever, fatigue, headache and vomiting.
But the culprit definitely isn’t Ebola.
First, the symptoms “rapidly resolve
following supportive treatment,” WHO said. And the disease doesn’t seem
to spread from person to person. In fact, scientists don’t know yet how
the disease is transmitted. Scientists have tested 33 of the cases for
Ebola, and all of them came back negative. The samples also tested
negative for other viruses known to cause unexplained bleeding, such as
Marburg virus and Crimean-Congo fever. Five samples did test positive
for O’nyong-nyong — a mosquito-borne virus closely related to
chikungunya. But O’nyong-nyong doesn’t cause bleeding and isn’t fatal.
“The laboratory results received so far do not explain the
symptomatology [unexplained bleeding] of the reported cases nor the high
mortality rate,” WHO said.
“Viral hemorrhagic fever” is a generic
term for a group of illnesses caused by four families of viruses.
Several of these viruses — such as dengue, yellow fever and
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever — are spread by mosquitoes or ticks.
When the disease is severe, the virus can damage blood vessels, causing
bleeding in organs, under the skin and from the mouth, eyes and ears.
But that’s not what kills. “The cause of death is typically not loss of
blood from bleeding, but from multi-organ failure — especially the
kidneys and liver — and shock syndrome from low blood pressure in
patients with severe illness,” Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease
expert at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in an
email.
A few bacteria can also cause internal
bleeding and organ failure, Chiu wrote. “But if I had to guess, I would
think an undiagnosed mosquito- or tick-borne viral illness [is causing
the outbreak in South Sudan],” Chiu wrote. Doctors Without Borders, or
MSF, has a team in Aweil, South Sudan, where the current cases are being
reported. And it’s “watching the situation fairly closely,” the agency
said in an email to Goats and Soda. “MSF has teams experienced with
viral hemorrhagic fevers, who could deploy very rapidly if necessary in
the area, but for the moment it does not seem that is required,” the
agency added. –NPR
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