Molecular diagnostics, therapy and epidemiology of agents causing viral hemorrhagic fevers with special regard to Lassa virus

Viral hemorrhagic fevers are a severe problem for public health systems especially in remote tropical areas. Lassa fever, caused by Lassa virus, is endemic in West-Africa. Several hundred thousand cases occur every year. Laboratory diagnostics is essential to reliably diagnose the disease and differentiate it from other febrile infections. The first part of this work describes the development and evaluation of test-systems to detect Lassa virus RNA in clinical samples. Therapy of Lassa fever is limited to supportive measures and treatment with Ribavirin. Several mechanisms of action are discussed to be responsible for the inhibition of Lassa virus by Ribavirin in cell culture. The second part of this work shows that the inhibition of the inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase is not the responsible mechanism if action. In the last part, the molecular epidemiology of Lassa virus in West-Africa is discussed and both a geographic and a temporal analysis of Lassa virus evolution are presented