World alert on mystery disease

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

THE World Health Organisation has issued a rare emergency travel warning that a mysterious form of pneumonia poses a worldwide health threat.

The disease, known as atypical pneumonia, which has killed four people and hospitalised scores of others, is spreading from Asia around the world.
Most outbreaks of the highly contagious illness have been reported this past week in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.

In the latest fatality, a Vietnamese nurse died at the weekend after having earlier treated an American businessman who also died of the disease.

Canadian health officials reported that two people who recently arrived from Hong Kong died in Toronto.

In Frankfurt, Germany, a doctor who treated a patient with the illness in Singapore had to be taken off a New York-Singapore flight yesterday during a stopover and was hospitalised. Two other people accompanying the doctor were also taken off the flight with symptoms and 150 passengers temporarily quarantined.

"Until we can get a grip on it, I don't see how it will slow down," said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. "People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals.

"It's a highly contagious disease and it's moving around by jet. It's bad."

The Geneva-based WHO said that in the past week it had received more than 150 reports worldwide of the atypical pneumonia, which it called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

"SARS is now a worldwide health threat," Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, said in Geneva.

"The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick, and stop its spread."

The advisory said there was no reason to restrict travel but urged people to seek medical attention if they had travelled to infected areas and have symptoms of the illness, which include coughing, high fever and shortness of breath.

SARS also may be associated with headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, confusion, rash and diarrhoea.

Epidemiologists from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in Vietnam yesterday to investigate the outbreak there. A separate team of French doctors was expected to bring medicine and respirators.

Samples were rushed from Hanoi to Atlanta and will be tested immediately to try to determine the cause, said Dave Daigle, a CDC spokesman.

The Hanoi outbreak started after an American businessman travelling from Shanghai via Hong Kong apparently infected up to 31 hospital workers, four of whom were listed in critical condition, including a French doctor.

The American was evacuated and died in Hong Kong.

[cycloneye]

This is very worrisom if it spreads more.

[wx247]

Dangerous story!! Keep us posted.

[southerngale]

Scary! :o

[azsnowman]

Seems to be hints of terrorism, this is not virual or bacterial and is not repsonding to any treatment!

Dennis

[southerngale]

Seems to be hints of terrorism, this is not virual or bacterial and is not repsonding to any treatment!

Dennis

:bo :bo :bo :bo :bo :bo :bo :bo

[azsnowman]

I know....this is down right unreal, when the news of this first broke, they said "NO WAY, this is NOT linked to terrorism" but now that more studies are being done, like I said, this is not of virual or bacterial nature, most pneunonia is of the virual nature and responds to antibiotics, this strain, what ever it is, does not respond to ANYTHING....

Dennis

[mf_dolphin]

The illness is believed to spread “person to person” and have an incubation period of two to seven days, Gerberding said. “There is no evidence to suggest that this can be spread through brief contact or assemblages of large people,” she added.
Gerberding said the CDC is working to get more samples for its labs to analyze. Tests could take several days, but officials said they hope to have initial results ready by early this week.
Although the CDC is keeping “an open mind” about bioterrorism, Gerberding said the mystery illness appears to be naturally occurring.

This is the lastest I can find. Dennis, where did you see that it wasn't viral or bacterial?

[azsnowman]

It was on CNN reported by Wolf, not too long after the news conf in the Azores.

Dennis

[mf_dolphin]

OK, thanks for the info. I saw where it wasn't rsponding well to drugs but haven't seen anything that said it wasn't bacterial or viral.

[streetsoldier]

Where can I get some?

[azsnowman]

Here's an article from todays Az. Republic, it 'splains a lot:

Illness outbreak may be new strain of flu, exotic virus
Emma Ross
Associated Press
Mar. 17, 2003 12:00 AM



Related link
• Q&A about mystery illness


A deadly, mysterious respiratory illness spread largely among health care workers in Asia could be a new strain of flu or even an exotic virus passed from animals to people, a health official said Sunday.

Probably the most feared by health experts, however, would be a new and deadly strain of flu.

The illness, which carries flu-like symptoms, has killed nine people, seven in Asia and two in North America. Its rapid spread in Southeast Asia in recent weeks caused a rare worldwide health alert to be issued Saturday.

Health officials say it may be several more days before they are able to identify the disease. However, they said, several of its features suggest it is caused by a virus.

"Certainly influenza is on the minds of many people," said Dr. David Heymann, communicable diseases chief for the World Health Organization.

Lab tests have ruled out some varieties of flu, as well as some viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever. However, many other possibilities remain, Heymann said.

Those include "a new strain of influenza" or exotic diseases that are capable of being spread from animals to people.

"If it really is the flu, it could be we have a new organism that could cause a pandemic," said Dr. R. Bradley Sack, director of Johns Hopkins' international travel clinic.

Experts discount the possibility that terrorism is the source and believe it is a contagious infection that spreads most easily from victims to their doctors, nurses and families through coughing, sneezing and other contact with nasal fluids.

"Nothing about that pattern suggests bioterrorism," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Officials said they are encouraged that some recent victims seem to be recovering, although they are unsure whether that is because of the many antibiotic and antiviral drugs they have been given or simply the natural course of the disease.

The illness is being called severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The incubation period appears to be three to seven days. It often begins with a high fever and other flu-like symptoms, such as headache and sore throat. Victims typically develop coughs, pneumonia, shortness of breath and other breathing difficulties. Death results from respiratory failure.

The World Health Organization has been aware of the outbreak for about three weeks but issued its global alert this weekend because of concern that the illness would spread to North America and Europe.

The WHO estimates that perhaps 500 people in all have been sickened if an earlier outbreak that peaked last month in Guangdong province in China turns out to be part of the same disease.

Ninety percent of the most recent cases have been in health care workers.

Investigators suspect a virus is involved because victims do not seem to respond well to standard antibiotics, which kill only bacteria, and because their white blood counts drop. That typically happens with viral infections but not bacterial ones.

No cases have been confirmed in the United States, but Gerberding said the CDC is checking out a few calls. The North American fatalities were a woman and her son who died in Toronto after visiting Hong Kong.

[StormCrazyIowan]

My mom told me she heard on the news last night that there is possibly 5 cases of it in Illinois!!!! :o She said the news said that the people are all at home, none are hospitalized, but they are going to undergo tests here soon! Great! Right next to me!

[southerngale]

My mom told me she heard on the news last night that there is possibly 5 cases of it in Illinois!!!! :o She said the news said that the people are all at home, none are hospitalized, but they are going to undergo tests here soon! Great! Right next to me!

:o :o :o :o :o