Nation prepares for deadly bat virus

(Credit: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)

Bird flu, swine flu, anthrax; and now add Hendra--a lethal virus that resides in bat urine and horse spit--to the ever increasing list of barnyard threats.

The U.S. and other countries are investing in Hendra virus research because they fear it may be used in biological warfare, Dr. Peter Reid told horse owners and "bat carers" at the Queensland Horse Council Hendra virus conference last week. And Dr. Reid should know--he was the veterinarian involved in the first known Hendra outbreak, which killed prominent Queensland horse trainer Vic Rail and 14 of his horses in 1994.

Back then, there was speculation of foul play until the Australian Animal Health Laboratory isolated and identified what it said was a new virus unreported anywhere else in the world.

This bug, along with and its even deadlier relative the Nipah virus, is so virulent it's considered a U.S. homeland security threat. There is no effective treatment or vaccine for Hendra or Nipah. (An Ausie-U.S. team recently developed a serum that protects ferrets exposed to the Nipah virus.) Thankfully, it has to date occurred only in Australia. The latter has killed hundreds in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India, while the former has downed four out of the seven people infected in Queensland, Australia--a 57 percent mortality rate.(PDF)

So far it appears that Hendra is transmitted from bats to horses and from horses to humans. Nipah transfers from bats to pigs and from pigs to humans, but there have also been cases of bat to human and human to human transmissions, according to experts. (Again with the swine?)

Still, although contained for now Down Under, it's one of the top items to justify a new $575 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kansas.

The new facility would replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and would be dedicated to the research of "high-consequence biological threats involving zoonotic and foreign animal diseases."

Specifically, the new facility would provide a BSL-4 level space, which affords the protection necessary for researchers to study life-threatening microorganisms like Nipah and Hendra for which there is no known vaccine or therapy.

So, apart from the $575 million tab, is there reason for concern?

Dr. Reid told the Australian Associated Press that with the increased outbreaks in the past four years "it was his gut feeling that the virus was becoming more contagious".

"Bats are quite accessible and in the wrong hands it can pose quite a threat," he said.

[chris8772]

Why are we writing articles like this? Doesn't this just give ideas to those who wouldn't have normally thought of this?

[jonny-mt]

Yeah, because if there's anything that inspires lunatics to launch a biological attack, it's an article on a technology site about bat urine.

[solitare_pax]

Why not write a better article about how incredibly _STUPID_ it is to put a new Bio/Agro research facility in the middle of Kansas, which is in the middle of the tornado belt - not to mention where there are plenty of food, horses and cows to spread these incurable diseases around? The current Plum Island facility (off Long Island NY) offers the right combination of isolation and nearness to civilization, and ought to be upgraded, not discarded for some pork-barrel project. Or at least relocate it to somewhere really isolated - like the Midway Islands in the Pacific.

[zyxxy]

Plum Island is hard to defend against attack.

And as jonny-mt notes above, the knowledge of these kinds of materials is already known long before it get to CNET. This is news in name only. Note the date of the Australian event. 1994. This has already been widely disseminated in science and health journals long ago. The research facility, though new, has been in planning for years.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Is there a vaccine yet for the Media Hype Virus?

[techman21]

Afraid not - Obama got elected and H1N1 still tops the news.

[pd2care]

It's a diversionary tactic. The media is taking the light away from the Obama administration who hasn't done piddly squat of what they "promised" they were going to do.

[mike_ekim]

yes. the vaccine is created thus:
--stop readig sensationalistic articles, and certainly stop commenting on them. The number of clicks and comments tell the publishers what we are interested in reading.

interesting point: my response to your comment will likely be interpereted as 'one more person who was likely to see the advertisements for 'FedEx'.

[CRosko42]

Is this how Batman was made?

[highguard01]

bats are sensitive clearly if you had these proplems there is a defense,hydrogen oxide would probily help clear up some this,

[viper396]

Either you stupid or joking. Hydrogen Oxide is water.

Given you inability to spell or punctuate a sentence we'll assume you're just stupid.

[highguard01]

dude you got nothing but negative comments and you never used hydrogen oxide it is a powerfull cleaner
specialy in a steam form.....ps it can also make a loud sound so before you go insulting people you better be ready to actouly provide more then spit. i need facts to how stupid i am and how smart your 600 comments are?

i could just make a whole list on how your just a hater and hydrogen oxide=water does more then you and can do more then your whole life. pff its worth more then you are to.How you like that and i can prove it.no one wants to buy you. you like grammer you learned it good in same school that makes you beleave marconi invented the radio

[eastmanweb]

How many hours before the Hendra and Nipah computer viruses hit?

hahahah, another virus hype.. I really can't believe it, nobody wasted any time eh!

[JigenIII]

geez, are we going through every creature in the animal kingdom?

[tektaktyks]

horse spit,yea,very dangerous,i hope they wont kill all the horses in egypt like they did with pigs,what about camel spit?lama?

[Trane Francks]

Just don't french kiss horses and all is cool. ;)

[perfectblue97]

There are much easier and simpler ways for terrorists to kill people. That's why blowing people up is still the number one method of terrorist attack. Any idiot can make a bomb using instructions downloaded from the internet, but it takes money, brains and equipment to launch a biological attack.

Home Land Security is barking up the wrong tree, probably deliberately in order to get more funding.

[setjeff15081947]

Bats! . Bats! . Bats! [Ruth Gordon In The Movie "My-Bodyguard"].
At The Top Of This Window, It Does Have The C-Net Logo.
I Was Erronously Led To Believe That This Site Was About Technology-News.
Obviously Mistaken Here, N'Est-Ce Pas?

[kjam_productions]

Actually you smarmy peabrains, there was a very good report on 60 minutes about the very incident in 1994 and how it has begun to show up in other parts of the world. This is some serious stuff (for lack of a better clean word). While I'm not an alarmist, this is the kind of thing that if a vaccine is not found soon, it will be at our backdoor within the next 10 years if not sooner. Then what?

[intexx]

Vitamin D

[farmgirl576]

With the NBAF moving to Kansas, at least there will be the capability to study viruses like these. The current facility on Plum Island is dated and unsafe for the increasing threats facing the agriculture industry. I'm glad it's coming to Manhattan. Our agricultural economy will be safer as a result.