The Return of the Athenian Plague?
There's some rather disturbing shit happening in Angola in Africa at the moment, an outbreak of Marburg virus (a viral haemorrhagic fever, or VHF) has killed 132 people, including 4-5 foreign doctors.
9 people are currently in isolation in Italy, after a doctor returned from Angola and fell ill.
What is particuarly worrying about this outbreak is that out of 140 cases, there have been 132 fatalities, which means that at the moment, this virus has a mortality rate of approx 95%
After doing a bit of research, I came across some interesting contradictions:
Marburg supposedly has an incubation period of 3-9 days. Infact, the relatiely short incubation period of most filioviruses has been a major reason that they have not spread beyond rural areas.
According to the WHO
Marburg virus disease is an acute febrile illness accompanied by severe haemorrhagic manifestations. The disease has an incubation period of 3 to 9 days. In the earliest stage of infection, symptoms are non-specific and may be easily confused with more common diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid fever. A severe watery diarrhoea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting are early symptoms, as are severe chest and lung pains, sore throat, and cough. A high proportion of cases develop severe haemorrhagic manifestations between days 5 and 7, most frequently affecting the gastrointestinal tract and the lungs. A characteristic rash usually appears at this time, sometimes involving the whole body.
However, according to Reuters:
"The incubation period is 21 days so we must reinforce the surveillance in neighbouring provinces and especially in Luanda," Vice Minister for Health Jose Van Dunem told Reuters.
The incredible spread of this virus to foriegn health workers is also a worry. Most western trained medics are familiar with the concept of barrier nursing and would utilise such techniques when dealing with a patient that was even suspected of having a VHF.
Source here
This leads me to a very, very spooky possibility, which is that the virus is transmissible through the air (droplet transmission). Actually, there is already some evidence to support this. According to promed, this strain of marburg can be transmitted by sweat and saliva, unlike Ebola, for example, which is mainly transmitted by blood.
Although contraversial, there are some who believe that there is a historical precedent for a VHF which is air-transmissible and has a 21 day incubation period.
The Plague of Athens wiped out the ancient Greeks. It was carried to Greece by a warship that came back from Africa. According to historical sources, this disease was an airborne hemmoragic fever with an incubation period of 21 days. The first week, you were asymptomatic and non-infectious. Second week, you were asymtomatic and infectious, third week, you developed symptoms.
It is said that the long incubation period of this disease is what made it so terrible, since there was no way of knowing who was sick and in closed enviroments like ships, the virus spread rapidly.
The benchmark history text of the Plague of Athens was written by Thucydides.
You can read it here
This article from the CDC puts forward the argument that from the historical description, a VHF was the most likely culprit.
The Thucydides Syndrome: Ebola Reemergent?
I'm going to do a bit more research on this, this post is mainly just a place to get all the bits of info down. If anyone has any more info on this, i would appreciate it.
9 people are currently in isolation in Italy, after a doctor returned from Angola and fell ill.
What is particuarly worrying about this outbreak is that out of 140 cases, there have been 132 fatalities, which means that at the moment, this virus has a mortality rate of approx 95%
After doing a bit of research, I came across some interesting contradictions:
Marburg supposedly has an incubation period of 3-9 days. Infact, the relatiely short incubation period of most filioviruses has been a major reason that they have not spread beyond rural areas.
According to the WHO
Marburg virus disease is an acute febrile illness accompanied by severe haemorrhagic manifestations. The disease has an incubation period of 3 to 9 days. In the earliest stage of infection, symptoms are non-specific and may be easily confused with more common diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid fever. A severe watery diarrhoea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting are early symptoms, as are severe chest and lung pains, sore throat, and cough. A high proportion of cases develop severe haemorrhagic manifestations between days 5 and 7, most frequently affecting the gastrointestinal tract and the lungs. A characteristic rash usually appears at this time, sometimes involving the whole body.
However, according to Reuters:
"The incubation period is 21 days so we must reinforce the surveillance in neighbouring provinces and especially in Luanda," Vice Minister for Health Jose Van Dunem told Reuters.
The incredible spread of this virus to foriegn health workers is also a worry. Most western trained medics are familiar with the concept of barrier nursing and would utilise such techniques when dealing with a patient that was even suspected of having a VHF.
Source here
This leads me to a very, very spooky possibility, which is that the virus is transmissible through the air (droplet transmission). Actually, there is already some evidence to support this. According to promed, this strain of marburg can be transmitted by sweat and saliva, unlike Ebola, for example, which is mainly transmitted by blood.
Although contraversial, there are some who believe that there is a historical precedent for a VHF which is air-transmissible and has a 21 day incubation period.
The Plague of Athens wiped out the ancient Greeks. It was carried to Greece by a warship that came back from Africa. According to historical sources, this disease was an airborne hemmoragic fever with an incubation period of 21 days. The first week, you were asymptomatic and non-infectious. Second week, you were asymtomatic and infectious, third week, you developed symptoms.
It is said that the long incubation period of this disease is what made it so terrible, since there was no way of knowing who was sick and in closed enviroments like ships, the virus spread rapidly.
The benchmark history text of the Plague of Athens was written by Thucydides.
You can read it here
This article from the CDC puts forward the argument that from the historical description, a VHF was the most likely culprit.
The Thucydides Syndrome: Ebola Reemergent?
I'm going to do a bit more research on this, this post is mainly just a place to get all the bits of info down. If anyone has any more info on this, i would appreciate it.