CDC Announced Deadly Hemorrhagic Fever Can Now Spread Between People

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on November 16 that the deadly animal virus that causes hemorrhagic fever like Ebola with symptoms of fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding gums, skin rash, and pain can now spread through human to human contact.

This hemorrhagic fever virus was first discovered in 2004 in the Bolivian province of Chapare and disappeared. Named after the town where it was first discovered, the Chapare virus had infected at least five people in 2019.

Chapare Hemorrhagic Fever Virus is Not a Pandemic Threat

This virus can be transmitted through bodily fluids and can kill infected people. Fortunately this year, there are no active cases recorded. Experts said that even if outbreaks happened, the virus is unlikely to cause a pandemic like the COVID-19.

However, there are reasons to be alarmed about the Chapare hemorrhagic fever virus. In 2019, three out of five infected people were health care workers in which two of them died, according to the CDC.

Colin Carlston, a researcher from Georgetown University, told LiveScience that this virus spread quickly as a respiratory illness. But unlike many respiratory illnesses, this virus typically soon after the person gets infected because it is a hemorrhagic fever virus.

Like the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, health care systems will be devastated by the outbreaks as many of them will get sick after treating an infected person.

2019 Outbreak

The first sign of the Chapare virus in 2019 was found in the sample of bodily fluids in which doctors initially believed that it was dengue. In South America, dengue is always the first disease experts would think of before anything else because it is similar to hemorrhagic fever and prevalent in that region.

But further tests did not show any signs of dengue virus. Then the scientists decided to test it on other pathogens that are common in the region, such as yellow fever and Machupo, which are both deadly hemorrhagic fever. Still, the test results came back negative.

The CDC's partnership with the Latin America-focused Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) had helped them finally identify the virus when PAHO gave a sample of the Chapare virus. They were able to identify fragments of RNA similar to that of Chapare. Additionally, the CDC was able to quickly develop an RT-PCR test to diagnose the virus in the future.

The outbreak in 2019 showed that the virus could spread from person to person. The medic got infected when resuscitating the medical resident that was being transported to the hospital.

Also, the experts reported that the virus is also present in the semen of the survivor 168 days after he was infected. Likewise, the virus was also detected in rodents collected around the home near the farmlands of the first patient infected. But experts noted that this does not prove that the rodents were the source of the outbreak.