Health News
African fever virus reaches Germany, mass thrush deaths
Sep 14, 2011, 13:28 GMT
Berlin - A mosquito-borne virus from Africa which causes fever and headaches has spread to Germany, possibly causing mass deaths of birds, tropical medicine scientists in Hamburg said Wednesday.
The usutu virus was discovered in dead thrushes near the central city of Frankfurt, but has not been observed in humans in Germany yet. In Italy, humans caught the non-fatal virus in 2009 after being stung by mosquitoes.
Usutu causes fever, a rash and headaches and can lead to encephalitis in the elderly and weak. The growing threat from new viruses has been in the news with the release this month of the US thriller movie Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh.
The Bernhard Nocht Institute, a laboratory in Hamburg specializing in tropical diseases, said it had found the virus in the birds, but proof was still not there that usutu from mosquito stings was the cause of 'thousands' of deaths of thrushes in southern Germany.
The virus has been slowly spreading northwards in the wild. Birds in Austria are known to have caught the virus in 2002.
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