Ebola

Dr. Matthew Lokwiya reclined in a rocking chair three weeks ago, exhausted by the unrelenting challenges at Lacor Hospital since the deadly Ebola virus broke out the month before. "It's a horrible thing," said Lokwiya, 43, the hospital's medical superintendent. "It is so dramatic. Somebody is sick, taken to the hospital, and then they die. " As he spoke, Lokwiya betrayed no suspicion that the unmerciful virus was already multiplying inside his body. The next day he would get sick - the staff said it was malaria.

Who would keep the generators humming now that Sister Dinarosa Belleri was dead? That was just one of the questions churning in the tortured mind of Brother Jacques De Meester yesterday as he stood beside the open grave that awaited his longtime friend and colleague. Whenever the local hospital needed electricity and the generators were low on fuel, it was always Sister Belleri, the lively Italian nun, who volunteered to fill the tank. Now, on a sweltering Sunday, her homemade coffin had been hoisted from a hospital gurney and was about to be lowered into the earth.

Ebola has, with great notoriety, killed about 90 people in Zaire, but health officials are more worried about less exotic bugs that kill millions worldwide each year. They are such infectious diseases as malaria, cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, rotavirus and measles - and AIDS, to name just a few. "We have far worse problems in the developing world," said Margaretha Isaacson, emeritus professor of tropical diseases at the South African Institute for Medical Research in Johannesburg, South Africa, a short flight from Zaire.

It started April 4 when a young lab technician complained of a pounding headache. Five days later, a high fever and nausea had set in. By April 14, the man - known only as Kimsumu - lay dead in a remote hospital about 300 miles east of here, his internal organs ravaged by a strange and horrible disease. But before the 36-year-old man left this world, doctors said, he may have passed on his illness to at least 12 other people - three nuns, his sister, three doctors, three anesthesiologists, and two others.

When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras. For generations, American medical schools have hammered home that lesson so doctors won't overlook the obvious when it comes to diagnosing disease. But today, with exotic diseases like Ebola and mad cow just a plane ride away, thinking zebras might not be a bad idea, according to the nation's top public health official. "Our borders are now essentially meaningless," Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told an audience of 100 doctors last week at the College of Physicians in Center City.

Most creatures, if they leave behind evidence of their existence, do so in the form of fossils buried in the earth. Viruses, on the other hand, can leave genetic "fossils" woven into the DNA of animals that they have infected - accounting for a surprising 8 percent of the genome in humans, for example. A new study has identified animal species that harbor fossils from two especially nasty virus families, one of which includes Ebola, offering intriguing clues as to why some animals can survive infection by these killers and others cannot.

If it's Doomsday, it must be London. Where famished, flesh-eating zombies, infected with human rabies called the Rage virus, haven't eaten in months. Two are children. Andy and Tammy (Mackintosh Muggleton and Imogen Poots) were on holiday in Spain when the Rage rocked the U.K. When they are reunited with their father (shifty-eyed Robert Carlyle), he tells them that Mother (Catherine McCormack) is dead. Feeling incomplete without even a photo to remember her by, the youths slip past security and return to their home where they find Mom is one of the undead and Dad is a liar.

Talk to most infectious-disease experts and they'll shrug their shoulders. Necrotizing fasciitis has been around for a long time, they'll say. And besides, there are other icky diseases to worry about. "Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands," said David Condoluci, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's Stratford campus. They come in all forms. Some are caused by viruses, some by bacteria, some by parasites.

A new age may be dawning in the battle against one of humanity's oldest and deadliest enemies: viruses. Scientists say we are just entering an "antiviral era" comparable to the amazingly successful antibiotic era that began with the discovery of penicillin before World War II. "Fifty years ago, we were just beginning to produce antibiotics," said Dorothy Crawford, a microbiologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. "Today we're in exactly the same position with antiviral drugs.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, turned 100 this week - 100 deaths, that is. The milestone provoked caution, innovation and concern throughout the world, as infections globally passed the 2,700 mark. The caution: President Bush embodied prudence last week when he authorized quarantining people suspected of having SARS if Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson found it necessary. A new disease hasn't made the quarantine list since 1983, when Ebola was added.

Most creatures, if they leave behind evidence of their existence, do so in the form of fossils buried in the earth. Viruses, on the other hand, can leave genetic "fossils" woven into the DNA of animals that they have infected - accounting for a surprising 8 percent of the genome in humans, for example. A new study has identified animal species that harbor fossils from two especially nasty virus families, one of which includes Ebola, offering intriguing clues as to why some animals can survive infection by these killers and others cannot.

If it's Doomsday, it must be London. Where famished, flesh-eating zombies, infected with human rabies called the Rage virus, haven't eaten in months. 28 Weeks Later . . ., sequel to that cannibals' rave 28 Days Later . . ., hits the ground running, tearing through the English countryside, believed to be depopulated and virus-free (we know better), back to London. There, under the auspices of U.S. military and medical forces who pronounce that everything is under control (in other words: "Mission: Accomplished")

If it's Doomsday, it must be London. Where famished, flesh-eating zombies, infected with human rabies called the Rage virus, haven't eaten in months. Two are children. Andy and Tammy (Mackintosh Muggleton and Imogen Poots) were on holiday in Spain when the Rage rocked the U.K. When they are reunited with their father (shifty-eyed Robert Carlyle), he tells them that Mother (Catherine McCormack) is dead. Feeling incomplete without even a photo to remember her by, the youths slip past security and return to their home where they find Mom is one of the undead and Dad is a liar.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, turned 100 this week - 100 deaths, that is. The milestone provoked caution, innovation and concern throughout the world, as infections globally passed the 2,700 mark. The caution: President Bush embodied prudence last week when he authorized quarantining people suspected of having SARS if Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson found it necessary. A new disease hasn't made the quarantine list since 1983, when Ebola was added.

A new age may be dawning in the battle against one of humanity's oldest and deadliest enemies: viruses. Scientists say we are just entering an "antiviral era" comparable to the amazingly successful antibiotic era that began with the discovery of penicillin before World War II. "Fifty years ago, we were just beginning to produce antibiotics," said Dorothy Crawford, a microbiologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. "Today we're in exactly the same position with antiviral drugs.

Federal officials offered a $1 million reward yesterday toward capturing whoever is spreading anthrax germs, as scientists confirmed two more anthrax infections and investigated possible ones. The newly diagnosed cases involve an assistant to anchor Dan Rather at CBS News - the fourth media company struck by the bacteria - and a letter carrier near Trenton, where at least two anthrax-tainted letters were postmarked. Both women have the less-serious skin form of anthrax and are recovering, officials said.

When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras. For generations, American medical schools have hammered home that lesson so doctors won't overlook the obvious when it comes to diagnosing disease. But today, with exotic diseases like Ebola and mad cow just a plane ride away, thinking zebras might not be a bad idea, according to the nation's top public health official. "Our borders are now essentially meaningless," Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told an audience of 100 doctors last week at the College of Physicians in Center City.

Dr. Matthew Lokwiya reclined in a rocking chair three weeks ago, exhausted by the unrelenting challenges at Lacor Hospital since the deadly Ebola virus broke out the month before. "It's a horrible thing," said Lokwiya, 43, the hospital's medical superintendent. "It is so dramatic. Somebody is sick, taken to the hospital, and then they die. " As he spoke, Lokwiya betrayed no suspicion that the unmerciful virus was already multiplying inside his body. The next day he would get sick - the staff said it was malaria.

Jones Onencan went to the aid of a sick neighbor in early October, cradling the feverish man's sweaty head as he was carried to Gulu Hospital. Everyone assumed the man had malaria. The neighbor died a few days later. So did most of his family. Then Onencan fell sick, suffering from vomiting, a fever and diarrhea. Shortly after he was hospitalized Oct. 16, his gums began bleeding and he fell unconscious. By then, the disease that was killing Gulu residents was no longer a mystery.

A discovery by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine appears to be an important step in the search for a cure for Africa's deadly Ebola virus. The horrific and highly contagious disease is one of the world's most feared. It causes blood to hemorrhage from the nose, mouth, eyes and other orifices and kills up to 90 percent of its victims. It is so feared it has inspired books and movies about medical mystery plagues. Although infected monkeys were imported to a U.S. research lab in 1986, Ebola has never occurred among humans in the United States.