Posted on 04/27/2005 8:15:49 PM PDT by Flamenco Lady
Marburg outbreak claims 253 lives in Angola
The outbreak of Marburg, an Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever, has killed 253 people out of 273 infected in Angola, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry said that one more death and three new suspected cases of Marburg hemorrhagic fever were reported on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.people.com.cn ...
Interesting post.. thanks. Pinging Judith Anne. Could you forward this to your list?
Russian Scientists: Bird Flu Pandemic Has Begun
Excerpt:
"Most of these countries are experiencing outbreaks of this disease for the first time in their histories. In several, outbreaks have been detected in virtually every part of the country Over the past two months, more than 100 million birds have either died of the disease or been culled in Asia. * * *But to the greatest concern of the worlds scientists today is the evidence that the most deadly flu virus the world has ever seen has indeed made its final mutation, and as we can read as reported by the American Newspaper Washington Times in their article titled "Bird flu looking more like a pandemic", and which says, "Public health officials in Vietnam fear the South Asian outbreak of bird flu is becoming less virulent and, thus, more likely to spawn a pandemic.”The virus could be adapting to humans," said Peter Horby, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. "There's a number of indications it could be moving toward a more dangerous virus."
By way of comparison, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 40 million people worldwide, had a 5 percent mortality rate. The comparable rate for bird flu has fallen from nearly 70 percent to 35 percent this year. Also worrying health officials is the emergence of asymptomatic bird flu in poultry."
Dr. Henry Niman of Harvard Medical School, and one of the worlds leading virologists, and founder of the privately funded research institute Recombinomics, has further stated, "Media reports are now providing more detail on specific human-to-human cases that signaled the more efficient H5N1 transmission, particularly in northern Vietnam. The case described above provides detail about the first reported transmission from patient to health care worker, a very big red flag for human-to-human transmission.
The transmission at the time was the longest transmission chain, and symptoms in a second nurse would have extended the chain further. Although that nurse tested negative, the virus is changing genetically. This can affect the screening tests. Moreover, prior false negatives increase the likelihood that the second nurse was also H5N1 infected, consistent with the clinical presentation and contact with confirmed H5N1 cases."
But Dr. Niman’s most important statement about the mutation is, "Thus, there are several clues that H5N1 infections in humans may dwarf official numbers, yet these results go unreported and media reports continue to talk about possible human-to-human transmission."
From a report that could not be posted on FR. The article contais many internal links to recent news report.
Thanks for the link. Looks like that one is sneaking up on us.
In the past YEAR the Marburg virus increased its fatality rate from 25% to over 90%. This dramatic change in the death rate does not normally take place this quickly in nature. There are many scientists openly speculating about genetic researchers manipulating this virus.
Which raises several questions for the serious minded to consider: (1) Why Africa? [answers are too numerous to get into here], (2) Assuming that Marburg has been genetically altered, what is the ultimate GOAL of the guilty parties? [E.g. population control or the possibly same as releasing a man made HIV/AIDS virus in Africa?], (3) Who would engage is such terrible research?, and (4) Potential threats to the U.S. and rest of the developed world?
Not having any of the answers myself, I yield the floor to medical researchers at FR.
I've thought along the same lines, myself.
Pingd'em.
Well, sometimes crap just happens. We tend to often think that we've tamed Mother Nature, but then your house gets shredded by a hurricane or washed away in a tsunami and you're diagnosed with cancer even though you never smoked.
For whatever it is worth,there were claims of biowarfare in Angola,during the civil wars.The inference was South African origin (although Cuba comes to mind as well.)
See link:http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/rsa/cbw.htm
Training Exercise Responsible for Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever Alert
----- This report is apparently a miscommunication. There is no outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Equatorial Guinea. I have received this information from a colleague in Equatorial Guinea.
"Maybe you heard about an Ebola Case in Bata (Equatorial Guinea); they talked about it during the week-end on Radio France Internationale. According to a WHO representative, what really happened was that a training exercise was held to update medical workers on haemorrhagic fevers. Evidently some people thought that there really was an outbreak of Ebola!"
1. The ratio 253/273 == D_c/I_c =92%. This has been the same number for the past 6 weeks. The signficance, based on the underlying dynamics of this epidemic, is the growth rate is unchaged. The notion of containment is ridiculous. (Moreover, this number ignores the additional cases outside of Angola, which would lower the ratio and indicate an even greater growth rate).
2. The number of active cases = 20. This number has also remained largely unchaged. It is slightly higher because the totals are slightly higher. However, these are the people who can spread the disease. Therefore, the spreading potential is essentially unchanged.
3. The additional cases outside of Angola only make these numbers worse.
Thanks.
However, it's spreading far less fast than I thought it would, and I'm certainly more encouraged today than I was in early April.
About 10 years or so ago a close friend was diagnosed with one of these "avian" viruses - at the same time he was diagnosed with TB.........the source of his contracting TB is known, but the other remains unknown - but one hypothesis was that he had probably been exposed to it in Nam but his own immune system had fought it off, but the serious case of TB many years later lowered his immune system enough where it flared up and caused serious trouble.
You sure know how to brighten a day :)!!!
Thanks for the info - it does appear that a very clear pattern is emerging.
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