Hemorrhagic Fevers: How They Wax and Wane

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Abstract
This chapter concentrates on the arena viruses and presents some recent findings on Ebola virus and other hemorrhagic fever viruses. The viral hemorrhagic fevers all have similar clinical pictures, with mortality rates of 15 to 30%, or in the case of Ebola virus up to 80%. Between 1993 and 1996, an increasing number of different viral hemorrhagic fevers and related diseases were seen in any other comparable period over the past 3 decades. The previously known Zaire subtype of Ebola virus caused an epidemic in Kikwit, Zaire, largely through nosocomial amplification and person-to-person transmission. The arenaviruses responsible for naturally occurring human disease are listed in the chapter. There are at least two tools to deal with the shifting, growing target, and there is also the vaccine against Junin virus, which has the possibility to eliminate human disease from Argentine hemorrhagic fever, the largest public health problem caused by the American arenaviruses. One can approach the prevention or treatment of most of the hemorrhagic fevers optimistically, but Ebola virus prevention and treatment still elude us.