Marburg Surveillance Project Thread II

Various | May 31, 2005 | Vanity

[Judith Anne]

This is the Marburg Surveillance Project Thread II.

This thread, as the first one was, will be used for all of the latest Marburg Outbreak News and comments. This is the place to post all comments about the Marburg outbreak, all articles and links to articles about the Marburg outbreak.

[dc-zoo]

Judith..you picked a heck of a number to ping us with. LOL

[Judith Anne]

I want to pause and thank you for bringing us this urgent information. This is explosive.

[Judith Anne]

No kidding! Gave ME goosebumps!

[Kelly_2000]

he is on a trip for a week

[Kelly_2000]

OMG I just saw the number you pinged on i wont be able to sleep now LOL

[Judith Anne]

Sometimes, you just have to clench your teeth and smile.

;-D

[Kelly_2000]

yup :-D

[neverdem]

Hemorrhagic fevers are endemic to East Asia. Enter Korea and hemorrhagic fever into PubMed or PubMed Central. PubMed Central will give entire articles, not just abstracts. Click on NCBI when you get there also. There's a section on Influenza Virus Resource.

[Judith Anne]

Thank you for that resource. I didn't know that.

I just have never heard of Ebola or Marburg in Asia. We have hantavirus and noname virus here in the US, of course.

Now I'm going to go check out your link. Thanks again.

[Judith Anne]

I'm just going to start reading an article now, and give the link:

http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1127111

Title:

The Microbial Rosetta Stone Database: A compilation of global and emerging infectious microorganisms and bioterrorist threat agents

Again, thanks.

[Judith Anne]

Here's a link to the Microbial Rosetta Stone Database:

http://www.microbialrosettastone.com/

And a little comment:

"The Microbial Rosetta Stone (MRS) is a database that relates microorganism names, taxonomic classifications, diseases, and scientific literature for the most important human, animal and plant microbial pathogens, with linkage to public genomic sequence databases. The database was created as a resource for biosecurity researchers in government, academia or industry who are not expert microbiologists, but have a research interest in infectious microbes. This website contains an early release of the database, comprised of linked data tables that connect microorganism names, correct taxonomic classification and NCBI genome sequence data. There are corresponding figures that display the phylogenetic similarity of the organisms with links to the data tables.

"Acknowledgments
This project was initiated with seed funding from DARPA, and further development support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"The Microbial Rosetta Stone is a project of Ibis Therapeutics, a Division of Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., creators of the TIGER Universal BioSensor"

[Domestic Church]

"How long has this been going on? Where did it start?"

I guess those Chinese peacekeepers sent in last year brought some nasty stuff home. It does sound weaponized in some areas doesn't it?!


(Cindy - start with post 664!)

[infominer]

Judith Anne,

I hadn't read up on this thread for a couple of days but, it looks like this new information may have brought us back full circle to my question to Kelly_2000 on post 1322 of the first Marburg Surveillance Project Thread..."
Kelly_2000 I am directing this to you as your specific knowledge base and background on the topic is superb. However, input from everyone (FReeper brain trust) is vital.

I haven't been able to post for a couple of days but I have been following the discussion. Kelly_2000 in your post 1217 to redoglum you stated in part, '...it is Marburg and something entirely new.' I have been thinking back to my post 1076 on 5/16/2005 and was extrapolating the possible interconnectivity between Marburg, Ebola and H5N1 based on the articles posted on post 1076. The response was that this is Marburg. I don't disagree but what is being reported is Marburg evidently of a nature that is "different".

One of the big questions about this outbreak is the reclassification of cases. The question is what are the Marburg cases being reclassified FROM or vice versa? Evidently there are more cases - of something - with the Marburg cases being the reported cases. One of the URL's I posted on post 1076 referred to Dr. Niman requesting tests for H5N1. To me this indicates that even the symptoms were / are suspicious and had / have the possibility of being H5N1. Again, other cases have been reclassified. The general reference of these reclassification cases anticipates that deaths occurred.

In doing additional research something caught my eye about Marburg and Ebola. Some research shows the VP40 matrix protein is the cause for the filobrius (sp?) nature of these viruses. If I have read correctly the H5N1 also has a filobrius appearance.

Now, the questions for your technical expertise, could the VP40 matrix protein be introduced into the H5N1 virus naturally or otherwise? If so, might it not be difficult to distinguish the resultant virus?"

[Judith Anne]

I think the word you want is "filovirus" with "filo" meaning "threadlike."

Marburg, Ebola, and Avian Flu are all RNA viruses; I think what was being said in the recombinomics post 694 from xVIer is that if, for instance, the same patient has influenza virus plus Ebola virus at the same time, the two could recombine and produce something much worse than either...On the gene chain, there are sequences that are similar in each.

There have been intimations of this before, yours was one, there were others. I ignored those hints, because there was no real information like the boxun articles first, and because I just didn't want to think about it, second.

Mea culpa.

I find the boxun articles credible.

[null and void]

So... Perhaps the entire report is bogus? Because, if it's not, we have a really big problem...

Worth repeating.

[Cindy]

Thanks DC.

===
===

THANK YOU Judy for continuting the Marburg Project Threads.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1413888/posts

[Kelly_2000]

Hi infominer sorry I was not in the USA when you sent that post I was on a field trip

"One of the big questions about this outbreak is the reclassification of cases

This will remain an mystery until the data is published in a report or white paper or peer review. it's not my field so I cannot comment yet. I suspect that aside from molecular variation with this strain a history of polymorphisms can be observed by looking at sequence variations. It depends on the thoroughness of the harvesting of samples throughout the outbreak and prior quality of reference database materials also if there is an index case patient located.

The reclassification IMO is based on a desire to reduce numbers not correctly classify each case by isolate.It also depends on the methodology being used to identify the agent. Is the test clinical diagnosis? ELISA, immunohistochemistry, isolation, or PCR? who knows. Based on the poor controls and protocol history I would even hazard a guess and say they may be testing for antibodies (IgM and IgG)in patients, which would lead to false positives AND negatives, it is supposed to be used as a test for a recovering patient weeks after they become asymptomatic or can be used retrospectively for deceased patients. "could the VP40 matrix protein be introduced into the H5N1 virus naturally or otherwise?"

A short answer to this one, no and I think your understanding of the relationship of VLP in Ebola lifecycle is erroneous, take a look at a google search for VLP or VP40 matrix proteins it will help. I also think Judith corrected your impression of morphology / taxonomy " filobrius"

Thanks for posting and commenting sorry it's not the answer you where looking for ;-)

[Kelly_2000]

"Marburg, Ebola, and Avian Flu are all RNA viruses"

To be more specific they all have non segmented genomes recombination events are far more common in this group of virus.

[redgolum]

Based on the poor controls and protocol history I would even hazard a guess and say they may be testing for antibodies (IgM and IgG)in patients, which would lead to false positives AND negatives

So if an immune response did not have time to develop, then the test would be negative even if the patient died of the disease. That would explain a few things.

[Kelly_2000]

spot on, this has been noticed with VHF which in the main are explosively reproductive, a patient will often succumb to chronic symptoms and die prior to the body formulating an immune response.