Arenaviruses are enveloped viruses (about 120 nm diameter) with a bi-segmented negative strand RNA genome. The typical image in electronic microscopy showing grainy ribosomal particles (“arena” in latin) inside the virions gave the name to this family of viruses.
Scientists at Emory University and the University of St. Andrews have solved the structure of a key protein from Lassa virus, which is endemic to West Africa and can cause a deadly hemorrhagic fever.
After the death of three organ transplant recipients, a Victorian coroner will examine if it is possible to screen for a particular virus before donation.
Blood samples taken from one of the suspected cases in Sangha Region, Republic of Congo, tested negative for several viral haemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Marburg, CCHF, Arenavirus).
New World hemorrhagic fevers are emerging infectious diseases found in South America that can cause terrible, Ebola-like symptoms. Current treatments are expensive and only partially effective.
Scientists at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases of National Health Laboratory Service (NICD-NHLS), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Roche's 454 Life Sciences Corporation have discovered the new virus responsible for a highly fatal hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Zambia and South Africa in late 2008.
A team of Bolivian health authorities, U.S. Navy health experts based in Lima, Peru, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has characterized "Chapare arenavirus," a previously unrecognized arenavirus, discovered in serum samples from a patient in rural Bolivia who eventually died of the infection.
A case involving seven transplant recipients killed by a rodent-borne virus that they apparently acquired from donated and infected human organs has prompted a recommendation that regulatory authorities require suppliers of pet rodents to screen their colonies for the virus.