UN Warns of Worldwide Threat from Killer Pneumonia

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization warned on Saturday of a worldwide health threat as a mystery killer pneumonia spread from east Asia to other parts of the globe.

Releasing a rare "emergency travel advisory," the United Nations health agency said an ill passenger had been taken to an isolation unit in Frankfurt, Germany, on Saturday after being removed from a plane en route from New York to Singapore.

Some 155 other passengers who had been due to change planes or stay in Frankfurt were placed in quarantine there, while the remaining 85 passengers and 20 crew on the Singapore Airlines flight continued their journey, German officials said.

A spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO said there were reports two people had died in Canada, taking the death toll to nine worldwide since the first outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), an atypical pneumonia whose cause is not yet known, was detected in China in February.

"This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat," WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland said in a statement.

Among the dead is an American businessman taken ill in Hanoi after visiting Shanghai. He died on Thursday in Hong Kong where 47 cases have been reported.

Some 40 people were being treated in Hanoi, where one nurse died on Saturday, according to local health officials. Cases have also been reported in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the passenger taken from the plane in Frankfurt was a Singapore doctor who had visited New York after treating some of the first suspected SARS patients in Singapore.

"If the suspicion (of pneumonia) is confirmed, the transit passengers will have to remain under observation in quarantine for seven days in order to diagnose any possible infection and prevent the disease spreading," the Social Affairs Ministry in the state of Hesse, which includes Frankfurt, said in a statement.

WHO issued its first global alert for 10 years earlier this week because of the speed at which the disease travels and because patients are not responding to the usual treatments for pneumonia, Thompson said.

"As reports of cases are confirmed, you will see that there is a very high attack rate. When they get sick, they get very sick," he said.

"We have been doing tests for weeks now in the world's best laboratories and we still do not know whether it is a virus or bacteria," the spokesman added.

The first outbreak was reported in February in China's southern Guangdong province, where 305 people were infected and five people died.

Singapore and Taiwan have issued travel warnings after some cases followed trips to Hong Kong or mainland China.

It was after a visit to Hong Kong, where anxious locals have been sweeping surgical masks off pharmacy shelves, that a Canadian woman died of severe pneumonia on March 5. Her son, who did not travel with her, also fell sick and died.

In its alert, WHO said travelers and airline crews needed to be aware of the first symptoms, which include high temperature and difficulty in breathing.

It was also likely that anybody taken ill would have been in contact with a person diagnosed with the disease or who had traveled to an area where cases had been reported, the alert said.

But WHO said it was not calling for restrictions in travel to any area. (--Additional reporting by Michael Steen in Frankfurt)

"This whole UN warning thing is a TAD premature."

We will know very soon...

The latest:

36 minutes ago

In a rare "emergency travel advisory," the health agency said it has received more than 150 reports of what it called "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" in the past week alone, mostly in southeast Asia. At least three people have died — an American businessman and two people who arrived in Canada recently from Hong Kong.

"Health officials around the world are taking this situation very seriously," U.S. Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson said Saturday.

The department was "applying a full-court press to learn more about this outbreak and how it might impact on the United States," Thompson said. While no formal travel restrictions are in place, U.S. health officials said travelers may wish to postpone nonessential trips to countries at risk. Health officials are preparing to issue an alert for passengers returning from countries where SARS has been reported. WHO officials could not remember issuing such a travel advisory before.

The growing list of countries reporting cases of the illness include China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Most cases involve medical workers. No cases have been identified in the United States, health officials said. But a doctor believed to be infected was taken off a New York-to-Singapore flight in Germany on Saturday and quarantined.

Two people traveling with him — his wife and another doctor — also were being held for observation at the Wolfgang Goethe University Clinic in Frankfurt, Germany. In New York, health authorities put hospitals on alert. Also, a man traveling from Atlanta to Canada is "reported to have developed some respiratory symptoms," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) in Atlanta.

Doctors do not know what causes the illness — even whether it is a bacteria or virus. Gerberding said doctors are unsure whether antibiotics or antiviral drugs have an effect on the disease since they have not been consistently used in the areas with the most cases.

The potentially fatal 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," Gerberding said. When asked whether the illness could be caused by bioterrorism, Gerberding said, "We have an open mind and will be keeping an open mind as we go forward."

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said in Geneva, "Until we can get a grip on it, I don't see how it will slow down. People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals. It's a highly contagious disease and it's moving around by jet. It's bad."

One of the most severe outbreaks has been in Hanoi. A CDC team of epidemiologists flew to the Vietnamese capital Saturday and gathered samples from people who may be infected. The samples were immediately flown to Atlanta for laboratory testing. "SARS is now a worldwide health threat," Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, said in a statement issued in Geneva. "The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick, and stop its spread."

The Singapore doctor began suffering symptoms while in New York, said Dr. Angela Wirtz, a health official in the German state of Hessen, where the patient is being treated.

The man recently attended a New York conference, but it was not immediately known exactly when he was in the city, the nature of the meeting or which airline he used. There was concern the doctor may have infected others on board. Another 155 passengers who deplaned in Frankfurt were quarantined at the airport. German nationals were released while passengers in transit to other cities in Europe were awaiting travel permission from those countries, German health officials said. They did not give a breakdown of number of travelers or destinations.

Eighty-five people bound for Singapore and the plane's 20-member crew continued their journey but were to be quarantined upon arrival, health officials said.

The WHO advisory urged travelers who may have come in contact with someone infected to watch for symptoms such as high fever, coughing and shortness of breath. SARS also may be associated with headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, confusion, rash and diarrhea.

The advisory did not call for restrictions on travel to any destination but said people who suspect they may have the illness should seek medical attention and not travel until they recover. In Atlanta, the CDC emergency operations center has been activated and its staff is working around the clock. U.S. health officials are in contact with health officials in China, where cases have been reported for at least several weeks.

"We are doing everything humanly possible to learn what is causing this outbreak," Tommy Thompson said from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, before flying to Washington.

The Hanoi outbreak started after an American businessman traveling from Shanghai via Hong Kong apparently infected up to 30 hospital workers, five of whom now are in critical condition. The unidentified U.S. citizen was evacuated and died in Hong Kong. In southern China's Guangdong province, an illness has in recent months killed five people and sickened more than 300 with pneumonia. The public health bureau there had no comment Saturday while calls went unanswered at the same agency in Guangzhou city.

In Canada, Toronto Public Health officials said a woman died March 5 and her adult son died March 13 after arriving recently from Hong Kong. Four of their relatives were hospitalized.

The illness also might have emerged in British Columbia, Canada, where one person was in intensive care at a Vancouver hospital and another person has recovered, Toronto health officials said.

http://www.syzygyjob.net/letstalk/messages/29571.shtml

Date: March 15, 2003 at 01:09:50

From: danna Fed. Way [Federal Way, WA Between Seattle & Tacoma],

I just came home from four days in the hospital. My mom (84) and I seemed to have respitory infection. Five days later her blood pressure went crazy and her heart was beating so fast they had to put her on a ventalator. She is still in intensive care on ventalator and we're not sure she is going to make it as she can't breath on her own. The next morning after hospitalizing her, they took me to the hospital with a 102.7 temperature and my blood pressure was 69/39. Three days in intensive care before they could keep my pressure up but had a blood infection (never identified) Pneumonia (no pathogen identifiable).

I went to my normal hospital St. Francis. They had no room, Tacoma hospitals were full, Bremerton was full, Auburn reginal was too swamped. Finally got into Swedish medical. One bed left. The staff was coughing, I watched five nurses come down with the same thing in two days. Pain, larangytis like symptoms, labored breathing then pneumonia,usually blood pressure problems. This has been since this last Sunday. No matter what they did, they could not identify it and either they don't even try (although they said they cultured every thing they could get from me) or they are truly baffled. Where the hell is the alerts to the public and why with this so rampant, isn't more being checked into?

I'm only out of the hospital because I can't see my mother, but if we get the call she is failing, I will be by her side. They said I needed another week there. I am home and on oxygen and 7 types of pills but I refused to be tied to the hospital when all they did was let me lay there when stabalized. Three IV tubes with five types of antibiotics. This is NO simple flu. When you go down, you go fast and hard. It is contagious as anything I've seen.

Something is wrong here. You're not hearing about it, but there are people dying, and as Kate pointed out earlier, alot of them on ventilators. I have never been this sick and in this way. The hospital staff is so rushed, and half are getting as sick as the patients, they could hardly keep up. How about the two schools here just shut down for an out break of Nowalk-like virus. It don't work that way. Just a school, or the retirement home that had the outbreak. It doesn't start that way unless it's put there. If a child has it, the parent gets it, then other relatives and kids. These things don't just wait to go to a school with a child then attack just one building. Think about it people. They had to give me all the new types of antibiotics just to get control of it, but it isn't stopped yet. The only thing that cultured out was mold and fungus, and the doctors said that couldn't possibly account for this disease.

Maybe they better take a little closer look. When my one nurse just collapsed in the hallway after complaining that she was having trouble breathing and her heart was racing, then she walked out the door and collapsed, it was just like with us. The minute my sister and neice started feeling ill, they got to the doctor and he put them a mega antibiotics immediately. They are still on their feet but not doing so well. Heads up people, this is not a false alarm. The people who delivered my oxygen machine said they are picking up five new customers a day with people needing oxygen from being sick with this. They said this is unusual. Things are getting strange.

Not trying to alarm you, but if you get a chest cold and sort of a laryngitus type bug, start watching yourself. We actually thought we were improving and it just came out of no where and hit our hearts too.

May you all be protected and safe in God's love.

Danna

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