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. It is the first new hemorrhagic fever-associated arenavirus from Africa identified in nearly four decades.
A detailed genetic analysis of this novel arenavirus, named Lujo virus, after the sites of the outbreak (Lusaka, Zambia, and Johannesburg, South Africa) is published online in PLoS Pathogens.
A detailed genetic analysis of this novel arenavirus, named Lujo virus, after the sites of the outbreak (Lusaka, Zambia, and Johannesburg, South Africa) is published online in PLoS Pathogens.
