Hemorrhagic Fever in Angola

I've decided to join Tangled Bank's science version of "Carnival of the Vanities." I had entered last week with a post about bird flu. This will be my second post. I was going to post about the invasion of the non-native plant giant Hogweed in Massachusetts until I read that a company now has a patent to make an Ebola vaccine, and there has been an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in Angola.

An Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever has killed sixty people in Angola. The World Health Organization [WHO] does not think the disease is Ebola. People living in Angola have been told to avoid the Uige region in the north where the deaths have been reported. Ebola tends to affect the adult population, while in this case about four or five of the victims have been children. The symptoms of the disease include vomiting, bloody discharge, and fever. These symptoms are similar to Ebola and dengue fever. According to Recombinomics.com, "[a]lthough WHO is not ruling anything out, it would be reassuring if they had indicated that the children were influenza A negative.  An infectious disease targeted age group with dengue fever symptoms and a high case fatality rate clearly is a red flag for influenza A testing." One new study found a link between the spread of Ebola and the handling of "bushmeat", wild animal carcasses, including gorillas and chimpanzees. This is the first conclusive proof that Ebola passes between animal and human hosts. One possible way of preventing the spread of Ebola is to discourage the handling of bushmeat, "despite its important place in the African diet."

In related news, "Crucell N.V. (CRXL: news, chart, profile) shares picked up 3 percent to $13.50 as the Dutch biotech company said the National Institutes of Health has granted it an exclusive license to certain patents to develop and commercialize vaccines an Ebola vaccine." According to BusinessWeek, "[t]he patents cover components of Ebola antigens and vectors as well as a one-shot emergency vaccination strategy."