A deadly animal virus that causes fevers, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding gums, skin rash and pain behind the eyes can now spread between people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced.
The virus spread from person to person through bodily fluids in a region near Bolivia's capital city of La Paz, killing three people. There are no active outbreaks of Chapare in 2020, and even in the event of further outbreaks the virus would be unlikely to cause a pandemic, according to virus experts.
There are reasons to be concerned about the news, however. Three of the five confirmed patients from the 2019 outbreak were health care workers, according to a CDC statement; a "young medical resident," an ambulance medic and a gastroenterologist all contracted Chapare after contact with bodily fluids from infected patients. Two of them died.
Hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola rarely spread as widely as respiratory illnesses.
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