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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(19):2267.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A team of Bolivian health authorities, scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and US Navy health experts based in Peru has identified a previously unrecognized arenavirus as the cause of a deadly hemorrhagic fever that emerged in a remote area of Bolivia (Delgado S et al. PLoS Pathog. 2008;4[4]:e10000047).

Serum samples were available from 1 patient, a 22-year-old farmer and tailor, who was among a small cluster of hemorrhagic fever cases that occurred in a rural area near the Chapare River in December 2003 and January 2004. This patient's course of illness rapidly progressed to shock, bleeding, and death within 2 weeks after symptom onset.

Sequence analysis of segments of the pathogen, named Chapare virus, revealed that it is related to other arenaviruses known to cause hemorrhagic fever in South America, particularly Sabiá virus. The researchers said they hoped that "more extensive . . . [Full Text of this Article]