DD & Doc.,

Someone from Yahoo Heath group has forwarded me this discover of new worm.It is really scared me.Dont know if you have read this :(

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Doctors Discover New Worm, One That's Lethal to Humans

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
Published: June 28, 1996
Scientists in California said today that they had discovered what
they believe is a previously unknown parasitic worm that can be fatal
to humans.

Fragments of the worm were found in an AIDS patient who died from the
infestation, but they were not identified until a year later. The
worm had molecular biology resembling that of a tapeworm but acted
more aggressively in the body than most tapeworms.

Doctors initially thought the patient was suffering from a rapidly
growing cancer in his abdomen. But a biopsy and the use of new
genetic laboratory techniques found that the large mass of tissue was
from the worm's fast growth, which caused scar tissue.

In reporting the discovery in the international journal The Lancet,
Stanford University scientists said they wanted to alert doctors to
the worm's existence so they might treat anyone suspected of having
it with drugs known to be effective against similar parasites.

The scientists who solved the puzzle are from both Stanford and the
Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, Calif. The authors
said they did not find the entire worm, which has not been named, but
identified it from fragments by using the genetic techniques.

The scientists do not know how often the new worm causes disease in
humans and where the microbe exists in nature, Dr. David Relman, a co-
author, said in an interview.

In recent years, scientists have identified a number of new microbes,
including one called cyclospora, which is causing intestinal illness
in at least 11 states. Health officials have tentatively linked many
such cases to eating fresh fruits like raspberries and strawberries.

The man who died from the worm infection was a 44-year-old accountant
from the San Francisco Bay area who had been infected with the AIDS
virus for five years. He often went camping in California and had two
dogs but had never traveled outside the United States.

In early 1994 he began suffering pain in his abdomen and back, weight
loss, sweating at night and fever. After the man was admitted to the
hospital in Santa Clara in March, his abdomen swelled as the worm
invaded and destroyed parts of his intestine and liver. Doctors
initially thought he had developed one of the many types of cancer
that often complicate the course of someone with AIDS. Shortly before
his deaths nine weeks later, doctors performed a surgical procedure
to remove tissue from his abdomen.

Pathologists headed by Dr. Luis Fajardo examined slides containing
thin slices of the man's tissue under a microscope. Some were stained
with chemicals to help identify a known microbe. But the experts
could not determine precisely what it was in the tissue that caused
the man's death, although the damage seemed to be caused by a
parasitic infection. It then took about a year to solve the mystery.

Slides were sent to pathologists and experts in cancer and infectious
disease around the country. Some infectious disease specialists
thought it was a cancer. But some cancer experts thought it was an
infection.

The cells were too small to be of human origin. But they were unlike
those of any known parasite.

Eventually a chemist at Stanford found unusually large amounts of
silicon in the tissue, a finding inconsistent with human tissue.

About 10 months after the man's death, Dr. Fajardo asked a Stanford
colleague, Dr. David Relman, to help solve the mystery by using a
strategy he had developed and used to identify a new microbe as the
cause of a rare illness called Whipple's disease a few years ago.

Dr. Relman used a molecular technique, polymerase chain reaction
(P.C.R.), to create millions of copies of some particularly useful
sequences of DNA from the suspected microbe. Since such DNA
blueprints vary in various species they are used to help classify
microbes.

But the sequences from the man's tissue did not match any stored in
genetic data bases. The sequences were distinct from human DNA and
placed the microbe in the tapeworm class, Dr. Relman said. Sequences
have been determined for far fewer disease-causing tapeworms than for
disease-causing bacteria.

"We don't know whether this is an organism that has been recognized
previously and may be quite well known but has not had its sequence
determined, or is truly novel," Dr. Relman said. "But we think it is
a truly novel organism because the pathology is unusual and has not
been published before."

It is not known whether the AIDS-weakened immune system had any
effect on the infestation's course.