Dr Colm O'Mahony - New Diseases for old
this text is part of the project Zendamateurs/Institut für mediale Krankheiten
In fact, a similar situation is well known to exist with a virus called Marburg virus which has been transmitted from monkeys to humans and caused fatalities in the past through monkey bites. Luckily, however, this Marburg virus is not transmitted onwards from human to human and, therefore, an epidemic similar to the HIV virus could not occur. Mutations that allowed HIV to grow in the human body obviously permitted the HIV to be transmitted through close contact in the ways that have been adequately described. Its dissemination was also further spread by other factors prevailing in this century, ie increased world travel, the use of human products like blood transfusions, and cryoprecipitate for hemophiliacs, etc. Other viruses have also managed to jump on the bandwagon of coincidence generated by advances in medicine. Perhaps an example of this would be numerous outbreaks of Hepatitis C that have occurred after simple injections of immunoglobulin to prevent rhesus antibody formation in rhesus negative women who had just delivered a baby. An unfortunate outbreak has been described in detail which occurred in Dublin in the 70's, where several hundred women are now suffering from chronic Hepatitis B liver disease after having been injected with anti-rhesus that contained significant amounts of Hepatitis C virus. -->
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this document has been last worked on on Wednesday, 11-Nov-1998 00:00:00 CET
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