DISEASE ECOLOGY OF TACARIBE GROUP VIRUSES IN NORTHWESTERN SOUTH AMERICA

Abstract : The central theme of this project has been the study of various aspects of the disease ecology of the Tacaribe group of arboviruses. The Tacaribe group includes two viruses, Junin and Machupo, which have been found to be the etiological agents of severe human diseases, Argentinian and Bolivian haemorrhagic fevers. Other agents of the group are Tacaribe virus isolated from bats and mosquitoes in Trinidad, and Amapari virus known from rodents and certain of their ectoparasites from an area north of the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. In 1965 the present investigators found another agent of this group near Cali, Colombia, which they named Pichinde virus for the mountain valley from which it was first isolated. Since that time workers at the Middle America Research Unit and the National Communicable Disease Center have isolated additional viruses of the group from Paraguay and Florida (USA), although the descriptions of these agents have not yet been published.