The world we live in now, with its changing climate,
burgeoning population and constant travel, is introducing us to all
kinds of viruses, scientists say.
Alan Bavley, The Kansas City Star | March 23, 2015
...... "The CDC delivered a shocker. The patient didn’t have Heartland virus. He had another virus — one nobody had ever seen before.
“It was very much a surprise,” Hawkinson said. “Everyone here at the
hospital hopes to help, but we couldn’t. It was very hard. We just
didn’t have any answers.”
That new pathogen — named Bourbon virus after the county in southeast
Kansas where the patient lived — is just the latest virus grabbing
headlines, joining Ebola, SARS and MERS, West Nile virus and strains of
flu that can mutate before vaccine manufacturers have time to respond.
Now, too, there’s chikungunya virus, which is carried by mosquitoes and
appears poised to establish a beachhead in the United States.
Are we really under siege from a growing number of new exotic and lethal viruses? Or does it just seem that way?
The answers are yes — and yes."
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