400 new SARS cases in China - Could This Be A Bio Attack?

Okay...so you don't believe me!

I don't care!

I know the truth, you don't as you don't know me and don't live near me!
You may have better info on the outbreak because your from china but it doesn't give you the right to judge people you don't know!

I do my job that i love, i get to do things that no other 20 year old gets to do unless they're in the army or AF.

So stop picking for fleas and stun gun yourself!

A "masters in bio warfare"? And a "medical doctor"? A "DMZ" in Iraq? A person claiming close connection to medicine who cannot even make a hash of spelling "fasciitis"?
Never mind your "RE-sources'; ( they are pitifully obvious) 'sources' will suffice.
If you ARE North of the Wall, it's 2.41 p.m. now and probably time to put your crayons away, choose your next false poster-name, and take your nap.

Eh�.

Estragon, she is who she says she is.

And the time north of the border would be 3.41 due to British summer time.
Never mind spelling, can�t you tell the time?

Eh, excuse me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What the feckin' hell is your problem?

I told you that they were my resources and if you don't believe me then suit yourself!

Dr. J.Mitchell is 60 years old by the way and has been linked to the CDC for 12 years.

And by the way...its actually 3.53pm in scotland
and i am not going to put away my crayons but my HPLC is needing cleaned and i have some stock to take care of, also my rounds in the hospital wards, get the medication done and write the off-duty.

I would love to stay and talk but i am busy and a valuable member of the NHS and CART team, so i can't..love to..but can't!

Ps..if your stun gun doesn't work...you should be able to fit it into a wall socket!

on various diseases, etc. I have no doubt she is who she says she is.... I pretty much take her comments in this arena, at face value... Unfortunately, this has made me a lot more worried about this particular virus... Thank goodness I'm not slated to travel again soon....

[Edited on 3-4-2003 by Gazrok]

I agree that RavenStar seems to know what she is speaking of, after all her experience is first hand. It is getting alot of people worried, I hope it can be contained. When I log-on, the home page that I'm brought to has a big warning of the sickness followed by ways to prevent it, one of which being "postpone your travel plans".

MMmmkkayyy (since most of you know me...)

The 100% mortality is a bit questionable, since people who had SARS in Canton *did* survive without aggressive treatment. But there's little doubt that without good medical treatment, most of the patients will die. Mortality rates are consistant with a 5% figure.


www.cnn.com...

Both pigs and chickens have been suggested as the animal vector for this diseaes. However, they've only been suggested and there is not hard evidence for either. Those are the two most common disease reservoirs for humans.

The pace of the epidemic seems to be slowing, thanks to quarrantines and other measures.

There's been some tenative identification of the virus but no real confirmation. They're doing animal studies this week to see if they HAVE got the right virus.

There was a brief suggestion in some literature that it might be two viruses working in tandem.

Again, nobody's going to use this as "germ warfare." It's too chancy. If you were going to kill off a population, you'd do it with chemicals so you could hit the right targets and not end up with it coming back to hit you and your allies.

Estragon:

I have been speaking with RavenStar for some time, and based on several conversations, and corroborated by information I have gotten from known CDC and USAMRIID representatives, I will go on record and say she knows exactly what she is talking about.

RavenStar:

Keep the faith

Im with you at least!

One idea I have been playing with is purely hypothetical, and since I am a mere geologist and not a geneticist, I am sure to have holes in it (anyone with true genetics credential, please chime in).

What we are seeing is obviously the spread of some kind of highly virulent/contagious agent. I agree with many who have pointed out, if it is a bio attack, it is of very low mortality... however, what if this is just the "first wave"?

It is known that many diseases exist in nature that have very very high mortality rates: some of these are extremely contagious and deadly for other non-human species, and do not pose a risk for humans. Others are also very dangerous to humans, but are not highly contagious.

Suppose that something that is known to be highly contagious (the common rhino virus or influenza) were to be slightly modified, not to be a deadly agent itself, but to act as a receptor for another less contagious disease with a high mortality rate.

In this scenario, the cold virus or influenza, not normally deadly, would be exploited for its excellent airborn transmission abilities. It would enter the body, and would likely cause normal symptoms just like any other cold or flu. Once in your body, it would serve as an entry vector for a much deadlier disease (later to be released) that would otherwise have a much harder time finding a foothold in the human body.

I may be totally wrong, but its a thought.

I don't know anything about viruses or bacteria or even diseases, however I have to ask, and I hope this isn't a stupid question.

Could SARS possibly mutate if it comes into contact with let's say, the west nile virus or another kind of virus or bacteria?

Or in contact with a geneticist ...

Yes it could easily mutate. There is an article floating around today describing how much more infectious SARS appears to be than first thought. They are being to think that it could be becoming more infectious due to the application of so many different anti-viral medications (which would also likely make it even more resistant to such drugs).

Oh yes... in fact, influenza is a very good example of a naturally mutating virus. As far as we know, viruses don't mutate when they come into contact with one another -- otherwise we'd all be in a boatload of trouble (or, rather, extinct.)

I am seeing reports now of a common vector -- the initial cases ate or were handling wild birds, btw.

Originally posted by dragonrider
What we are seeing is obviously the spread of some kind of highly virulent/contagious agent.

It's actually not THAT highly contageous. Compare it with the Hong Kong flu outbreaks. If it was extremely contageous we'd be seeing hundreds of thousands of cases (remember, the thing started back in November) and a lot more deaths.

Suppose that something that is known to be highly contagious (the common rhino virus or influenza) were to be slightly modified, not to be a deadly agent itself, but to act as a receptor for another less contagious disease with a high mortality rate.

Again, not terribly contageous compared to other diseases.

Once in your body, it would serve as an entry vector for a much deadlier disease (later to be released) that would otherwise have a much harder time finding a foothold in the human body.

These pathogens aren't symbionts. I'm unaware of symbiotic viruses... and in the case of a symbiont the half pair would simply not multiply or do anything without the other half (so you could have ... oh... five or 10 of Virus-Z in your bloodstream where it could easily be flushed out since it's not growing.

www.smh.com.au...


Three suspected SARS cases in Melbourne
April 4 2003

The number of suspected Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases has risen to seven after three young siblings were admitted to a Melbourne hospital overnight.

Australia remained clear of the virus despite one confirmed case, but fears continued to grow about the killer pneumonia epidemic, which had killed 79 people worldwide.

Australia has notified the World Health Organisation (WHO) of one case of SARS but the victim, a British tourist, has recovered and returned home.

But, aside from the three children in Victoria - a girl and two boys who were visiting from Canada - there were now two suspected cases in NSW and one each in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The three-year-old girl and her brothers, aged 18 months and three years, were all under observation in an isolation ward at the Monash Medical Centre.

They were taken to hospital in regional Shepparton yesterday after arriving last weekend from Toronto, Canada, where six deaths had so far been attributed to SARS.

Victoria's health authority today said it would be several days before it was determined whether they were suffering from SARS.

"It is more a matter of elimination than diagnosis," Department of Human Services spokesman Bram Alexander said today.

"There is no specific test for SARS so it is a matter of ruling out what they don't have and also testing them against the World Health Organisation's clinical diagnosis."

Other members of the family, who arrived in Australia last weekend, were also under observation but remained at home, Mr Alexander said.

"SARS can be spread within the family setting because of close contacts, so we are monitoring the health of the younger child and parents," he said.

"Because there is no test for SARS, it may be a matter at some point, depending on their condition, to see if they fit the WHO's clinical diagnosis.

One of the NSW cases and the Queensland patient were also fresh, while a 46-year-old Perth woman who underwent medical tests for the virus on Wednesday was found to be clear of the disease.

Northern Territory Centre for Disease Control director Dr Vicki Krause said it was so far unclear whether a 25-year-old man admitted to Darwin Royal Hospital earlier this week had the virus.

But Dr Krause said the man's condition was improving.

"As his conditions improves, it's becoming less likely its SARS," she said.

The latest figures from WHO put the death toll at 79 from 2,223 cases in 19 countries.

But the Commonwealth's deputy chief medical officer John Mathews was confident Australia had enough safeguards to stop the virus becoming an epidemic.

Australians have been urged to postpone travel to China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Canada, which were worst hit by the virus.

Prime Minister John Howard said today that Australia would cope better than most countries with any SARS outbreak.

Mr Howard said Chief Medical Officer Dr Richard Smallwood and federal Health Minister Senator Kay Patterson would hold a press conference on the issue later today.

He said Australia had issued a SARS health alert on March 16, and stressed the nation was well prepared for such events.

"... because of our very strong public health measures (we are) well and truly ready," Mr Howard told radio 3AW.

"We'll be able to cope rather better than most countries."

There are now seven suspected SARS cases in Australia: two in NSW, one in Queensland, one in the Northern Territory and three Canadian siblings visiting Victoria.

SARS has so far killed 79 people from 2,223 cases in 19 countries, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

AAP

www.reuters.com...


HK Police Launch Virus Manhunt as Infections Grow
Fri April 4, 2003 08:15 AM ET


By Tan Ee Lyn and Carrie Lee
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police launched a manhunt on Friday for hundreds of people who were exposed to a deadly respiratory virus as World Health Organization experts tried to nail down the source of the disease in southern China.

"If our Health Department colleagues think these people may infect other people, we'll use minimal force to send them to hospital for treatment," a police spokesman said.

The tough measure came after more than 10 staff at Hong Kong's United Christian Hospital contracted the disease from a patient, raising fears a new wave of infections was beginning and the epidemic in the territory was far from being contained.

Hong Kong reported 27 new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) on Friday, bringing its total to 761, the highest number of infections after mainland China's nearly 1,200 cases. Shanghai said it had one confirmed SARS infection.

The disease, which can lead to pneumonia, has killed 82 people and infected over 2,400 worldwide, prompting global concerns and leading economists to trim growth forecasts for parts of Asia after a plunge in tourist arrivals and sharp cutbacks on airline flights.

More countries imposed tougher restrictions on visitors on Friday to try to stem the spread of the disease, which scientists say is caused by a previously unknown virus that might have originated in animals.

Thailand added Canada to its list of high-risk areas and said its doctors would board all flights from there on arrival to test passengers for symptoms of the virus. Canada has the third highest number of cases in the world and has had seven deaths.

Malaysia, a major tourist destination in Asia, said all visitors would be required to make health declarations with immediate effect after a man died earlier this week, apparently from a flu-like virus.

Japan urged its citizens to exercise caution on trips to areas including Singapore, Hanoi, Taiwan, Macau and Toronto.


POLICE HUNT

In Hong Kong, police hunted members of 113 families who had fled an apartment block in the crowded Kowloon district after a sudden outbreak of infections there. The remaining residents were quickly quarantined and shipped to isolation camps.

Health officials believe everyone who had been living in Block E of Amoy Gardens was infected, and could be spreading the disease. The government has urged them in television and radio ads to turn themselves in but few have responded.

SARS first surfaced in China's southern Guangdong province in November and the illness has been spread by air travelers from Asia to North America and Europe. Little is known about the virus and scientists have yet to pin down exactly how it is spread.

Scientists from the WHO, which has warned against travel to southern China and Hong Kong because of the disease, were in Guangdong on Friday hunting for clues to the source of the virus.

"We know that it's the same disease because China is now in line with the rest of the world in its case definition," said WHO spokesman Chris Powell. "But it's far too early to start thinking which virus, how it travels or how it got between A, B, C and D."

Concern over SARS has even reached the remote South Pacific. Chinese travelers are now barred from entering Tahiti and other idyllic islands, Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio reported, quoting French Polynesia's President Gaston Flosse.

Singapore said a 29-year-old woman died there on Friday from SARS, taking the number of infections in the island state to 101.

But WHO scientist Osman David Mansoor said the epidemic was "almost certainly over" in Singapore but one to two weeks were needed before anyone could confidently know for sure.

Neighboring Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, has no confirmed SARS cases but is bracing for a possible outbreak. The price of masks has skyrocketed.


MASSIVE COSTS

With the war against Iraq already crimping growth, economists are counting the extra cost to countries affected by the epidemic as airlines cut flights to affected areas, hotels struggle with large cancellations and companies impose sweeping travel bans.

"With SARS, tourists will not come, Hong Kong people are not going to go out, so it's going to have a September 11 effect on the economy," said Frank Gong at the Bank of America.

Hong Kong Hospital Authority director Ko Wing-man said he was worried by the new outbreak at the United Christian Hospital, where more than 100 SARS patients are being treated. The hospital is now tracing others who might have been exposed.

A distraught caller to a radio show said her son who worked at the hospital did not dare go home for fear of infecting his family.

"I do not even where he is," said the sobbing woman.

Symptoms of the disease include chills, coughing, high fever and breathing difficulties. About four percent of victims die and many others end up in intensive care for weeks.

In Australia, three Canadian children were isolated in a hospital with one diagnosed as probably having the disease.

Is this not starting to sound sort of like the movie "Warning Sign" or "Outbreak"?

US calls home non-essential diplmatic staff
April 4 2003




The US has authorised the departure of non-essential personnel and their families from the US Embassy in Beijing, and from five consular offices in China as a result of the SARS outbreak.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed about 80 people in Asia and Canada. The pneumonia-like virus has also sickened at least 2,200 people in more than a dozen nations.

The US State Department said it had authorised the withdrawal of diplomatic staff from affected areas.

It said the move was "due to the risks posed by SARS, the uncertainties of how it is spread, and concerns over our ability to obtain suitable medical care or evacuate our affected employees and their families".

In a statement, the department noted that commercial airlines and most air ambulance services in China would not transport SARS patients.

The consulates affected by the authorisation are in Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenyang, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. The embassy and all the consulates will remain open.

Bush authorizes forceful quarantine for new pneumonia cases!!!!!!!


story.news.yahoo.com.../ap/20030404/ap_on_he_me/mystery_illness_quarantine

Bush OKs Quarantine Authority for SARS
40 minutes ago Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!


By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday gave federal health officials authority to quarantine Americans sick with the highly contagious mystery illness. Officials said there were no immediate plans to use the emergency powers.


AP Photo



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In an executive order signed Friday, Bush added severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, to the list of diseases for which health authorities have authority to hold Americans against their will.


It's the first time a new disease has been added to the list in two decades.


"If spread in the population," the order says, SARS "would have severe public health consequences."


Several diseases have long been on the list for which quarantine may be used: cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and several viral hemorrhagic fevers.


The last large-scale quarantine in this country was during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919, though there have been smaller scale quarantines � for instance, travelers coming off airlines or cruise ships who have been exposed to curable diseases.


Also Friday:


_ Federal researchers said they are beginning work toward a vaccine that could eventually help control SARS. They are already courting private pharmaceutical companies that might manufacture the treatments down the road.


_ In China, officials issued an extraordinary apology for not doing a better job of informing people about SARS. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Tommy Thompson said he spoke with his counterpart in China and they pledged to cooperate in battling the outbreak.


_ Pentagon (news - web sites) officials said that, effective immediately, all U.S. military personnel are prohibited from traveling to any part of China, including Hong Kong, except on essential missions. They also are advised to take extraordinary precautions if they visit Singapore or Vietnam.


_ Investigation into the disease's origins continued. International health officials were seeking the first person believed infected with SARS, a man in the hard-hit southern province of Guangdong.


SARS, whose symptoms include high fever, aches, dry cough and shortness of breath, has killed at least 85 people in Asia and Canada and sickened at least 2,300 in more than a dozen nations as infected travelers spread the disease. In the United States, 115 cases in 29 states have been reported.


About 4 percent of the victims have died from the disease, though none of them in this country. There's no cure yet, but most sufferers are recovering with timely hospital care.


While U.S. authorities described the executive order as a precautionary measure, quarantine has been used in other nations fighting SARS. In Hong Kong, authorities used barricades and tape to seal 240 people inside their infected apartment building, and the next night, they were put in quarantine camps.


In Ontario, anyone with symptoms, anyone who has been in contact with SARS patients or anyone who visited two hospitals where the illness first turned up were asked to quarantine themselves at home for 10 days.


And in Singapore earlier this week, authorities ordered the men's and women's rugby teams to quarantine themselves at home for at least a week after they returned from the Hong Kong Sevens tournament.


Asked about actions abroad, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said Tuesday that such measures didn't yet appear warranted in the United States.





"If there is a virus that is explosive ... and the only way to control it is by quarantine, we have to consider it," he said. "But we're not there yet."

Legally, quarantine involves restricting the movement of healthy people who may have been exposed to an infectious disease and may be carrying it. It's almost always done voluntarily, and usually for only a short period of time, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites), said this week.

Quarantine might be used, for instance, while someone is being evaluated or treated.

"It's very important to move away from the understanding of quarantine that we had a century ago, which was really something that was ... often very unfair and very difficult for the people who were involved in it. That is not the kind of quarantine that we're talking about in the 21st century," she said. "We're talking about public health tools that simply serve to protect people or to protect themselves or others from a communicable disease."

Isolation, a related but less severe action, involves separating people who are known to be infected from others. It is usually voluntary and occurs frequently in hospitals. People infected with SARS in the United States are currently being isolated.

States also have the power to quarantine people in a public health emergency, but that authority varies widely. The federal powers are derived from the law that Bush revised Friday.

this sars is puzzling me!!

What's really troublesome:

The first death from SARS occured six days ago...given the proper incubation time, wouldn't that place the infection at the start of the Iraqi war?

Secondly, why would the Bush administration give FEMA such a long leash in containing this outbreak by allowing them to secure all "possible" infectants through quarantine protocal. Keep in mind that the world has seen a reported 85 deaths to date...an insignificant number when weighed against six billion people. But if you see the media play on this, it looks like we are all about to die.

This doesn't add up...what's going on...I think only the powers that be know for sure...but I think this whole SARS thing is catching everybody off-guard right now and we need to look at the facts, not the hype.