Finished reading The Hot Zone, about Ebola and other filoviridae hemorrhagic virii. A good read, and a good reason why I want to get into biology research. There's lots of knowledge out there, and lots of conflicting memes in the world, so work is needed on getting all bioterror weapons effective vaccines, supportive treatment options, and quicker detection techniques. Seems as of 2003, I've read one report that a virus has been shown effective in monkeys. Pravda also reported 4 days ago a new vaccine developed by Russian scientists. Not sure how accurate that is even though I got the link off Google news.


The last outbreak of Ebola was in January 2004 in Mbomo in the Republic of the Congo, with 35 cases, and 29 deaths.

Right now there are 3 major disease outbreaks going on in the world: Dengue Fever in Indonesia, Yellow Fever in Burkina Faso, and SARS in China. Here's a page from the WHO that lists all disease outbreaks going on in the world. Disease Outbreaks.

Out here in California, the biggest occurring viral concern is probably hantavirus, which has a mortality rate of 40-50%, but is still quite rare.



- posted by Aargau @ 12:17 AM