International experts fear that a new, more virulent form of the bacterium Streptococcus suis could be responsible for killing 38 humans and more than 600 pigs in China's central Sichuan Province over the past 2 months. But they are puzzled about how a rare—and rarely fatal—disease that usually appears in isolated cases among humans became so deadly and whether it might strike again.
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Dennis Normile (2005) studied this question.