'Bas-Congo': Genetic sleuthing uncovers deadly new virus in
Africa This is an electron microscope image of a typical
rhabdovirus. Credit: UCSF An isolated outbreak of a deadly
disease known as acute hemorrhagic fever, which killed two
people and left one gravely ill in the Democratic Republic of
Congo in the summer of 2009, was probably caused by a novel
virus scientists have never seen before. Described this week in
the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens, the new microbe has been
named Bas-Congo virus (BASV) after the province in the southwest
corner of the Congo where the three people lived. It was
discovered by an international research consortium that included
the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and
University of California, Davis (UCD), Global Viral, the Centre
International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville in Gabon,
the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale, Kinshasa in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Metabiota and others. "Known
viruses, such as Ebola, HIV and influenza,