From the Don't Eat the Guano files...

The New York Times reports that two groups of researches have independently identified the Chinese horseshoe bat as the natural reservoir for the SARS virus.

The bats apparently are healthy carriers of SARS, which caused severe economic losses, particularly in Asia, as it spread to Canada and other countries. In Asia, many people eat bats or use bat feces in traditional medicine for asthma, kidney ailments and general malaise.

Thanks to an unnamed source for the link.

Disease Roundup

Several new and/or interesting outbreaks via ProMED-mail:

• Agence France-Presse reports that the Marburg death toll in Angola has hit 155, not counting the suspected Marburg death of a South African who left Luanda about a week ago. The virus continues to rage uncontrolled.
• Reuters reports on two more suspected cases of bird flu (not counting the woman who drank duck blood from earlier this week) as well as a doctor who died of apparent SARS, all in Vietnam.
• Folha de S.Paulo reports [in Portuguese] on a Brazilian outbreak of the parasite Diphyllobothrium latum in patients who ate raw, smoked, or undercooked fish. Patients consumed their sushi and sashimi at several establishments across Sao Paulo.
• UPI reports on a French woman who may have had variant CJD 20 years before the mad cow epidemic began.
• The AP reports that North Korean birds are sick with a different strain of bird flu (H7) than the highly fatal one which has spread to humans in other parts of Southeast Asia (H5).
• Agence France-Presse reports on the continuing spread of the rare Chlamydia infection lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) among homosexual European males.
• NYNewsday reports on a rash of E. coli infections acquired from petting-zoo animals. PlagueBlog recommends avoiding contact with animals before their internal temperature has reached 160°F. Use a meat thermometer if necessary.

And don't travel to Angola.

SARS Civets

Via Medbroadcast: China bans civets. This relative of the mongoose is being blamed for SARS. If you find yourself in China, you may neither kill nor eat a civet.

SARS Engineering

I missed the speculation back in the spring of 2003 that SARS was genetically engineered. Lev Navrozov thought the Chinese did it, while Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute of Science in Society thought it could have come from any of a number of genetic engineering labs. The folks at ISIS don't seem to have convinced the scientific community that SARS was anything more that a natural result of living with the livestock, but I'm sure Lev Navrozov would say that we're just hiding our heads in the sand.