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DISEASE

Two patients isolated in Padua over Ebola fears

Two people have been quarantined in the northern Italian city Padua over fears they have the deadly Ebola virus.

Published: 3 September 2014 11:49 CEST
Two patients isolated in Padua over Ebola fears
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed an estimated 1,552 people. Photo: Seyllou/AFP

A Nigerian and a person from Istria, a peninsula in northern Croatia, were suffering from a high fever and symptoms similar to those of the virus, Il Gazzettino reported.

They were placed in isolation at the Azienda Ospedaliera di Padova, a university hospital in Padua, in the Veneto region.

The move came just a few days after health authorities in the region issued guidelines on how to deal with suspected cases of Ebola, which as of August 28th had claimed an estimated 1,552 lives, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

A spokesperson for the hospital was unavailable for comment when contact by The Local.

There have been no Ebola cases in Italy since the an outbreak of disease began in West Africa. The disease has so far been contained to four countries – Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Italy’s Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said earlier this month the risk of anyone catching the disease in Italy is extremely remote but that the vigilance level of the authorities is high.

An Italian woman was recently hospitalized in Turkey over fears that she had contracted the virus, but was later given the all clear.

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DISEASE

Eight deaths in southern Germany blamed on shrew-borne disease

Eight cases of the Borna virus, transmitted by shrews, have been identified in encephalitis patients who died between 1999 and 2019, researchers said Wednesday.

Published: 8 January 2020 13:18 CET
Eight deaths in southern Germany blamed on shrew-borne disease
A horse in a meadow at sunset in Tettnang, Baden-Württemberg. People in rural areas have been most susceptible to the virus. Photo: DPA

All eight cases occurred in southern Germany, mostly among people living in rural or semi-rural areas and in regular contact with animals, they reported in The Lancet, a medical journal.

Carried by the bicoloured white-toothed shrew, the virus triggers an inflammation of the brain, and is known to affect horses and sheep.

The researchers speculated that it could be transmitted by house cats that had come into contact with infected shrews.

Symptoms start with fever, headaches and confusion, and progress to memory loss, convulsions and loss of consciousness.

READ ALSO: Where the flu epidemic has been hitting Germany the hardest

There is no known treatment for the disease, which gets its name from a town in Germany and was first described in the late 18th century.

In the eight newly identified cases, patients fell into a coma and died 16 to 57 days after hospital admission.

“Our findings indicate that Borna disease virus infection has to be considered a severe and potentially lethal human disease transmitted from a wildlife reservoir,” said co-author Barbara Schmidt from Regensburg University Hospital.

“It appears to have occurred unnoticed in humans for at least decades, and may have caused other unexplained cases of encephalitis in regions where the virus is endemic in the host shrew population.”

The scientists recommended testing for Borna virus in patients who suffer rapid deterioration of their nervous systems in order to establish the scale of infection among humans.

“It is still relatively rare in absolute numbers, but it might be behind a larger proportion of unexplained severe-to-fatal encephalitis cases,” said co-author Martin Beer from the Friedrich-Löffler Institute.

“Only more tests on patients with severe or even deadly encephalitis will find this out.”

The study, led by Hans Helmut Niller of the Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene in Regensburg, examined the brain tissue of 56 patients who developed encephalitis-like symptoms at some point over the last two decades.

The new findings bring the total number of confirmed Borna cases in southern Germany — all fatal — to 14.

The researchers were not able to definitively establish how the Borna virus was transmitted to humans, but victims for which such information was available lived in rural settings around animals.

“In at least seven cases, close contact with cats was reported,” they said in a statement.

“When cats hunt, they might bring shrews into their homes, exposing humans to them.”

The genetic profiles of all eight of the new cases were all distinct and matched the profile of locally infected shrews or horses, suggesting the infections occurred independently.

READ ALSO: World under-prepared for next serious epidemic, German health minister warns

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