A haemorrhagic fever that killed two people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009 and left a third person seriously ill was caused by a novel virus, researchers said. The newly-found microbe is likely to exist naturally among insects or animals but may also be spread by human contact, they said.
It has been called Bas-Congo virus, or BASV, after the province in south-western DR Congo where the three cases occurred, they said in a genetic study of the pathogen.
"These are the only three cases known to have occurred, although there could be additional outbreaks from this virus in the future," said Charles Chiu of the University of California at San Francisco.
BASV is unlike any of the other viruses known to cause haemorrhagic fever, a group of diseases that causes severe fever and muscle pain, sometimes ending in organ failure or unstoppable bleeding.
Called a rhabdovirus, it is genetically closer to the types of virus that cause rabies, according to their study, published on September 27 in the journal PLoS Pathogens. In fish, rhabdoviruses can cause fatal bleeding called haemorrhagic septicaemia, previous research has found.
The outbreak occurred in mid-2009 when a 15-year-old boy in a remote village called Mangala fell ill with a bleeding nose and gums, and bloody vomit, and died within three days, the paper said.
A week later, a 13-year-old girl who lived in the same neighbourhood and attended the same school fell sick with the same symptoms, also dying within three days.
The third case, who survived, was a male nurse who had cared for the girl.
He was transferred to a hospital at the river port city of Boma, where doctors took samples which led to the viral discovery.