Plague, amazon, disease, evolution, leptospirosis, medical, pandemic, science

Meet the Bacteria that Will Cause the Next Pandemic

It could be the beginning of a new global pandemic. Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease spread from animals to humans through water contaminated by infected urine. In severe cases, it can lead to liver failure, kidney failure, meningitis and eventually death. While it's been contained historically through screening and antibiotics, medical researchers in Peru recently stumbled across a new species of Lepto so genetically mutated that current tests for the disease don't detect it.

Millions of humans are infected with Leptospirosis every year, and the new strain could be spreading without detection. If new strains are transmitted beyond the relatively isolated jungle area where they were found, a catastrophic global pandemic could result.

There is no vaccine for humans, and treatment usually requires multiple antibiotics. Joseph Vinetz, M.D. was studying Leptospirosis in the Amazon region of Peru on behalf of the UC San Diego Division of Infectious Diseases when he discovered several humans and rats carrying the new strain. Dr. Vinetz fears that Leptospira licerasiae may have infected hundreds of humans in the remote region. Photo by: CDC.

New Species Of Infectious Disease Found In Amazon. [Science Daily]

2:40 PM on Mon Apr 7 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
1,580 views
18 comments

Comments

Garrison Dean, King... at 02:53 PM on 04/07/08
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Whoah whoah whoah... Have I not been negative enough? When do we get the Garrison Dean title headers?!

Plague I'm so jealous of you.
Plague at 02:56 PM on 04/07/08
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TAG!
92BuickLeSabre at 03:02 PM on 04/07/08
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@Garrison Dean: You would have preferred the alternative?

"Garrison Dean: Trapped In A City Of Dead Eyes"

In other news: Mr. Segway, we need those water-filterizers stat!
Ed Grabianowski at 03:02 PM on 04/07/08
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Haha, I thought of that when I made the tag. Just rename yourself "Post-Apocalypse" and you'll be all set, GD.
BlindKarma at 03:08 PM on 04/07/08
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Don't see myself drinking water straight from the stream. Being in Colorado you hear about some granola getting sick from bear whiz in the rivers. Thx for the warning though.

MRSA on the other hand scares the crap out of me.
Garrison Dean, King... at 03:09 PM on 04/07/08
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@Ed Grabianowski: Done and Done.
Annalee Newitz at 03:18 PM on 04/07/08
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@Ed Grabianowski: Or dystopia. Or mad science.
Seth L at 03:28 PM on 04/07/08
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How communicable is this though? I mean Bird Flu was all the rage until it was made clear that it's difficult to transmit.

@BlindKarma:

Exactly. That stuff is horrifying, and feels like it's freakin' everywhere.
amorphous at 04:22 PM on 04/07/08
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@Seth L: I was wondering the same. Couldn't you just boil your water? Plus, how frequent are severe cases? There is no such thing as a light case of ebola, but something like the flu has so many different levels.
corpore-metal at 04:51 PM on 04/07/08
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I've always wondered about this modern plague fetish that has grown up over the last 15 or so years, ever since Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer.

My guess is it has something to do with the fading fear of nukes or the long, slow, grinding and easily forgotten incurableness of AIDS.
Jonn at 05:44 PM on 04/07/08
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[insert zombie joke here]
ideaman2020 at 06:58 PM on 04/07/08
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@Ed Grabianowski: And here I was just thinking of changing my name to Leptospirosis...
dOk at 07:00 PM on 04/07/08
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If the cure for this is in Charlton Heston's blood....

Then we are all doomed... doomed I say!
DocGratis at 07:09 PM on 04/07/08
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Let see a disease that has to be transmitted by exposure (drinking or immersion) in infected fluid (which includes untreated fresh water).... oh and there have to be cuts or breaks in your skin/oral mucosa...

No human-human spread likely...

Wooo scary..

I think I will believe in the power of sanitation to protect us (and if water treatment plants fail this is NOT first on my list of concerns (and then you can always boil water)
Ed Grabianowski at 08:15 PM on 04/07/08
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@DocGratis: You're such a buzzkill, man. Stop ruining my fearmongery.
Jakus at 12:34 AM on 04/08/08
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@Ed Grabianowski: Im sorry, but he really did just ruin it, only 15 comments in as well, i was getting a teeny bit scared, but his comment set me straight.
@DocGratis: Thanks DocGrastis, i will now sleep tonite.
DocGratis at 06:55 AM on 04/08/08
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@Ed Grabianowski: Anything to ruin a saber's day... :)

Hey I'm all for science fiction... SCIENCE fiction...

You want scary dig up the recent studies show that lots of wild soil bacteria can not only survive antibotics...
but actually they can eat them.

It was on NPR last week...

The concern there is not the bacteria themselves, but the genes are out there, and bacteria can occasionally share genes across species..
zenpoet at 09:10 AM on 04/08/08
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@Annalee Newitz: I think dystopia is fast becoming the most used word on io9, up there with "the," "and," and "Torchwood."

On topic: I agree with an old bit by George Carlin.

"Let me tell you a true story about immunization ok. When I was a little boy in New York city in the nineteen-forties, we swam in the Hudson river. And it was filled with raw sewage! OK? We swam in raw sewage, you know, to cool off. And at that time the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know something? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one! EVER! You know why? Cause WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE! It strengthened our immune system, the polio never had a prayer. We were tempered in raw shit!"

This is why I always eat food I drop on the floor, swim in the Missouri River, and make out with coughing hobos, and take long deep inhalations of letters sent to Tom Daschle. Bring on the bacteria, I will make it call me daddy.