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--tons, and a 40-year-old stablehand who also cared for the ill animals was sickened but survived.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Virus crosses from horses to humans
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The mystery disease that killed 14 horses and a horse trainer in Australia last fall was caused by a highly virulent new virus that jumps from animals to man, scientists report.
The still-unnamed virus is part of the family that includes measles and canine distemper, Australian researchers reported today in the journal Science. But it's more deadly and has a
particularly disturbing element: Until now, all viruses in this family had been confined to a single species.
"It's not at all clear what's going on here," said Brian Maly, viral director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although Australia's outbreak appears to be over, doctors don't know what made this virus suddenly erupt, where it came from
Frustrated veterinarians tested the horses for everything from African-horse sickness to hantavirus, the rodent-borne virus discovered in the American Southwest 1 1/2 years ago when it began destroying people's lungs.
Then Murray and fellow researchers successfully isolated the mystery virus from the lungs of dead horses. They proved it was the culprit
clear what's going on here."
or whether it will strike again in Australia or elsewhere.
Brian Mahy viral director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In September, 21 horses on several Queensland, Australia, farms suddenly came down with severe respiratory disease, and 14 died. Vic Rail, 49, one of Australia's leading horse trainers, died after a week of similar symp
by infecting additional horses who quickly died.
by infecting 'additional horses, who quickly died. They then isolated the virus from a kidney of the late horse trainer. His virus was identical to the horses', Murray said.
The virus killed by creating holes in blood vessels that leaked blood into lungs until the victims drowned. Veterinarians reported horses dying with blood gushing from their noses and mouths. Genetic testing showed the nothernus is a fever-blowing virus.
the viral family that includes measles. The family also includes canine distemper, cattle plague and newly discovered versions that recently killed north-Atlantic seals and African sheep.
But this morbillivirus is very different from
its cousins, from its appearance under the microscope to its virulence. And unlike any other known morbillivirus, it afflicts more than one species: people, horses and the original host, which could be anything from a rodent to a bird, Mahy said.
The notion of animals transmitting killer viruses to humans isn't new — it's even the topic of recent best-sellers and movies. AIDS is believed to have originated in monkeys, for example, and CDC doctors just returned from battling a deadly hemorrhagic fever that ticks transmitted from sheep to at least 30 people in the United Arab Emirates.
The key to fighting such disease is discovering what animal is the host to the pathogen, spreading the virus without getting sick. Australians are testing animals that live near the horse farms to try to find the host. They said they were confident the outbreak was over, because tests of 1,600 horses and 90 people showed no evidence of further infection.
But Murray urged doctors and veterinarians worldwide to review their records of respiratory disease to see if the virus has appeared before. He will visit the CDC in Atlanta next week to discuss the new virus.
It's too early to say if other countries could be affected by the virus, said the CDC's Mahy, who explained the disease to scientists in U.S. horse country — Kentucky — today. "It's just a matter of chance that it didn't happen here," he said.
'Grandma' runs in Tokyo governor election
The Associated Press
TOKYO — In Tokyo, a parliamentary gadfly who used to play a character called "Nasty Grandma" on television is running neck-and-neck with the establishment candidate for governor.
fed up with usual politics are turning to outsiders
Now the wave has hit Japan with a vengeance.
In Osaka, voters are turning their backs on an ex-bureaucrat backed by every major party in favor of Knock Yokoyama, a television comic.
The phenomenon is familiar to democracies around the world, especially the United States: Voters
Yukio Aoshima used to dress up in a kimono and wig and was called "Nasty Grandma."
After elections Sunday, he could be called governor of Tokyo's 12 million people.
Aoshima, 62, said the established parties figured anyone would be fine for government jobs as long as they had the machine and the money.
"That's why the people of Tokyo
are angry. They're saying, 'What about us?'
The Tokyo and Osaka elections, part of a nationwide vote for local offices, aren't the first time citizens have erupted in anger at politicians in a country plagued by corruption scandals.
In July 1993, voters threw out the conservative Liberal Democratic Party for the first time in 38 years, and a reformist coalition led by Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa took over.
After a few modest reforms, however,
Hosokawa was bogged down
in scandals and quit. In June, a coalition dominated by Liberal Democrats took over, and old-style politics made a comeback: huge, pork-barrel budgets for farmers and little budget on reforms such as cutting bureaucratic red tape and opening markets to foreign goods.
The difference between now and 1993 is a mood of pessimism about government after recent disasters, both natural and manmade.
Prime Minister Tomichi Murayama was criticized for his slow response to the Jan. 17 Kobe earthquake.
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