[Laboratory-acquired human infection with SP H 114202 virus (Arenavirus: Arenaviridae family): clinical and...

Here in is described the clinical and laboratorial findings of a laboratory-acquired infection caused by the virus SP H 114202 (Arenavirus, family Arenaviridae) a recently discovered agent responsible for a viral hemorrhagic fever. The patient was sick for 13 days. The disease had an abrupt onset characterized by high fever (39 degree C.), headache, chills and myalgias for 8 days. In addition, on the 3rd day, the patient developed nausea and vomiting, and in the 10th, epigastralgia, diarrhea and gengivorrhagia. Leucopenia was seen within the 1st week of onset, with counts as low as 2,500 white cells per mm3. Counts performed after the 23rd day of the onset were within normal limits. With the exception of moderate lymphocytosis, no changes were observed in differential counts. An increase in the titer of antibodies by complement fixation, neutralization and ELISA (IgM) was detected. Suckling mice and baby hamsters were inoculated intracerebrally with 0.02 ml of blood samples collected in the 2nd and 7th days of disease. Attempts to isolate the virus were also made in Vero cells. No virus was isolated. This virus was isolated before in a single occasion in São Paulo State, in 1990, from the blood of a patient with hemorrhagic fever with a fatal outcome. The manipulation of the virus under study, must be done carefully, since the transmission can occur through aerosols.