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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Non-A Non-B Hepatitis ???? (New Discoveries)
Message-ID: <1093@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 23:33:36 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.1093
Posted: Sat Jan 12 23:33:36 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 05:05:21 EST
References: <156@sask.UUCP>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 31

> Has anyone out there got info on non-a non-b hepatitis? E.G. comparing this
> hepatitis relative to hepatitis-A. Better yet. Are there databases out 
> there that one can get this type of info from?

	Glad this came up. I was going to post the following eventually
anyway, but now it seems relevant.
	Non-A non-B Hepatitis is a generic name for any type of hepatitis
that can not be linked to either one of the two known viruses (i.e. A or B)
It is currently the most common form of hepatitis world-wide and there have
been no advances towards a vaccine in the absence of a known cause, although a 
third virus was detected.
	Recently, an article and paper appeared in JAMA, the Journal of the
American Medical Association, entitled:            ^(Dec 14 '84 252/22)

	International Findings point to Third Hepatitis Virus (article)

	Epidemic non-A non-B Hepatitis in Nepal (paper, p. 3140)
It appears that a new virus, call it C, is a retrovirus (as is HTLV-3, the
virus that causes AIDS) meaning that it has a different life cycle of 
normal viruses in that it becomes part of the cells it infects permanently
and does not kill them, along with many other differences.

	I realize that this does not answer the question that was actually
asked, but its something worth knowing. Perhaps looking at the references
in the paper might provide a clue where to look, however.


-- 
				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
		What do you expect?  Watermelons are out of season!