Faculty Bibliography

At the request of federal officials, Yale University has temporarily halted research into the sabia virus, the rare virus that infected a university scientist in a laboratory accident in Aug 1994. Connecticut officials said that there were no plans to close the lab where the accident occurred

Epidemiologists are assuming that Sabia virus has an incubation period of about 12 days, as do other members of what is known as the arenavirus family. The head of the Arborvirus Research Unit at Yale, Dr. Robert E. Shope, said in an interview that the researcher's incubation period was shorter, perhaps because he was exposed to a relatively large amount of virus in the laboratory accident. The laboratory accident and the surveillance drill to contain Sabia virus are eerily reminiscent of another laboratory accident that occurred in the same laboratory at Yale in 1969, when a team was in the process of discovering the Lassa fever virus. The Yale laboratory is one of three that is studying Sabia virus. Dr. Shope's team divided the samples and sent portions to the other two: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the U.S. Army laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Md

New York City and federal health officials reported on Aug 18, 1994 that an 11-month-old boy with a mysterious case of AIDS was most likely infected with HIV in a New York City hospital when he was less than two weeks old. Susan Blank of the New York City Health Department said that 'no overt breaches in standard infection control' had been found at the hospital, where health workers have been trained in standard infection-control measures

In findings that bear directly on the question of how to prevent mother-to-infant transmission of the AIDS virus, two new studies from scientists in New York show that the likelihood of infecting offspring rises with the amount of the virus in a pregnant woman's blood. The studies, from researchers in the New York State Health Department, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and New York University, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, are believed to be the first to measure the amount of HIV in infected women during pregnancy and at delivery and in the infant during the first months of life

For example, according to Dr. Barbara Weiser, from the Health Department, and Dr. William Borkowsky, who led the New York study, the findings help explain the high rate of success of AZT in preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus from mothers to infants. That result was reported in February in a study involving 477 women with HIV at 50 medical centres in the United States and nine in France. In the United States, about four million women give birth each year. An estimated 7,000 of them are infected with HIV, and as many as 2,000 of their infants will develop AIDS, said the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The time in which infants develop AIDS varies widely for those infected by HIV. Some develop AIDS within the first six months of life, while others do not develop the disease for several years, sometimes for 10 years or more

Standard anti-cholera antibiotics like tetracycline and doxycycline 'are the wrong drugs to send over' to the relief camps, said Dr. Paul A. Blake, an expert on the epidemiology of cholera at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a Federal agency in Atlanta. In an interview after he learned about the findings of antibiotic resistance in the cholera strain, Dr. Blake said several relief organizations had been sending the standard antibiotics in the belief that they were the drugs that were needed. The cholera bacterium's resistance to standard antibiotics, though of concern, is less dangerous than it would be in treating many other infections because antibiotics are a secondary measure in treating cholera. The primary life-saving measures are giving fluids and salts by mouth and by intravenous injection to restore the gallons of fluid lost in diarrhea. Dr. [Maria Neira] and Dr. Blake said early laboratory results indicated that the cholera strain is the same one that has been endemic in Rwanda in recent years, the type of Vibrio cholerae known as El Tor, serogroup 01, serotype Ogawa.

'It sounds totally wild and weird,' Dr. Merle Sande said, 'but it is a great example of the frustration and length that people will go to try to get a breakthrough.' Sande is the co-chairman of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, which is considering plans to conduct baboon bone-marrow transplants for AIDS there in collaboration with Dr. Suzanne T. Ildstad of the University of Pittsburgh. Since 1983, [Anthony S. Fauci]'s institute has been experimenting with bone-marrow transplants between identical twins to combat HIV. About 50 healthy twins have donated marrow to their HIV-infected siblings. CHART:Future AIDS fight SOURCE:Dr. Suzanne T. Illdstad GRAPHICS BY:NEW YORK TIMES PHOTO BY:New York times Dr. Suzanne T. Ildstad is one of the leaders in new uses for baboon-to-human transplants, leading to an ultimate goal of finding ways for the body to accept transplants without rejection drugs

Doctors treating the flood of Rwandan refugees in Zaire are predicting that the refugee camps may be facing what could turn into the biggest epidemic of cholera ever. An estimated one million people are huddled in a small area under dire conditions in the harsh lava-based terrain, where workers cannot easily dig sanitation trenches, say officials of Doctors Without Borders

'There may well be a huge epidemic, but it is not inevitable,' said the expert, Dr. Paul A. Blake. But, he added, 'it would be wise to expect the worst and prepare for it.' Ms. [Bernadette Brusco] said her organization did not differ with those comments. Cholera has been a serious health problem in Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zaire and Zambia recently, Dr. Blake said. 'The organism was in Rwanda and Zaire and waiting for opportunity' to spread further, he said. 'The major reason for being concerned about dead bodies is that people do not like to be surrounded by death,' Dr. Blake said. 'Lots of dead bodies lying around are not as much a health hazard as one person with active cholera who is defecating into a water source.'

In the nearly 20 years since the discovery of Legionnaires' disease and the bacterium that causes it, scientists have come to recognize the importance of water as the microbe's hiding place and source of transmission. Epidemiologists from the CDC are investigating 4 confirmed and 18 suspected cases of the disease among passengers who sailed aboard Celebrity Cruises' Horizon, and preliminary tests have identified the organisms in the ship's water tanks