Two herdsmen in Georgia have been infected with a brand-new virus, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday KBPS reports.
The newly identified virus is a second cousin to smallpox. And, like smallpox, it causes painful blisters on the hands and arms. Other symptoms include a fever, swollen lymph nodes and overall weakness, CDC scientists reported at a meeting in Atlanta.
The virus doesn't yet have a name, Vora says, because so little is known about it. "We haven't found any evidence of human-to-human transmission, so far," Vora tells Shots. "But how many people are getting sick? Are animals getting sick? We don't know ... We don't know if it has caused any deaths." Both of the men who caught the virus fully recovered. But related viruses, such as cowpox, can be deadly for people with suppressed immune systems.
And smallpox had a fatality rate of about 30 percent before the illness was eradicated in 1980. Since then, widespread vaccinations for smallpox have stopped. And this immunization gap seems to be opening the door for other viruses in the family — known as orthopoxviruses -- to resurface, Vora says. Both of the infected Georgian men caught the new virus from dairy cattle. At first, local health workers thought one man had anthrax — anthrax infections of the skin are relatively common in rural parts of the country. But when tests came back negative, the public health department contacted the CDC for help.
"The discovery brings up the question of what other viruses might be circulating out there that are even more closely related to smallpox and cowpox," Vora says. Although smallpox was eliminated in the wild, stores of the virus still exist in a few American and Russian laboratories. And there's growing concern that it could be used for bioterrorism.
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