Silently among us: Scientists worry about milder cases of MERS

Reuters via Yahoo News ^ | 5/16/14 | Julie Steenhuysen

[Kartographer]

Scientists leading the fight against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome say the next critical front will be understanding how the virus behaves in people with milder infections, who may be spreading the illness without being aware they have it.

Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and has so far infected more than 500 patients in Saudi Arabia alone. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected.

It is becoming increasingly clear that people can be infected with MERS without developing severe respiratory disease, said Dr David Swerdlow, who heads the MERS response team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"You don't have to be in the intensive care unit with pneumonia to have a case of MERS," Swerdlow told Reuters. "We assume they are less infectious (to others), but we don't know."

[Kartographer]

Some good points in this article. The disease itself isn't the only thing that can kill you during a pandemic.

[Kartographer]

Preppers’ PING!!

[GladesGuru]

Has anyone checked the small livestock in Sand Savage Land?

[what's up]

Whenever I see these stories, I immediately get the impression that CDC is trying to buttress its funding.

[Jane Long]

You mean like Typhoid Mary? Someone posted about her on another MERS thread, yesterday. Sca-eerie!!

[Kartographer]

Post like your’s always reminds me of the guy that gets hit by a train when he drives around the railroad crossing gates because they are always malfunctioning.

[blam]

The Deadly Virus MERS Has Arrived In The US — Here's What You Need To Know

[Kartographer]

The human body is an excellent host for a bio weapon.

[PapaBear3625]

Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and has so far infected more than 500 patients in Saudi Arabia alone. It kills about 30 percent of those who are infected. It is becoming increasingly clear that people can be infected with MERS without developing severe respiratory disease

In other words, it looks like the disease probably causes mild symptoms in most of the people infected. In the Third World, you generally are only seen by a doctor (and thus your disease recorded and reported) if you are gravely ill.

[alloysteel]

Nuke the entire Arabian peninsula. Then declare the locality as too contaminated to enter.

Ever.

[I want the USA back]

I expect that any moment now somebody will cry “offended” by the name “Middle East disease.”

[cloudmountain]

When my husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years, we discovered how rampant so many viruses were.

I got a NASSSTY stomach virus in Syria. The doctor, in Saudi Arabia, (a Saudi Arab trained in the USA) gave me some medicine to cure it.

The kicker is that my husband had to take it too because this stomach problem was sexually trasmittable. The medication worked like a champ. I started to feel better very soon and was A-ok in three days. I never looked back. middle east.

NAAASSSSTY bugs over there. No wonder life spans aren't very long.

[Kartographer]

There’s also a equal chance in the Third-world that you got it died of it and other then you immediate family no one took note.

[Sacajaweau]

Let’s call it.....the other swine disease.

[Lacey]

I just returned from a 2 week transatlantic cruise. Started feeling bad on the flight home from Barcelona. No fever but nasty cough. Now I’m getting paranoid.

[what's up]

This is how Gov't operates...they often create "crises" to justify the funding they get.

We've had these scares dominate the headlines many times in the last years. Just like the weather scares, many of these are false and attempts to keep/get more taxpayer funding.

[PapaBear3625]

There’s also a equal chance in the Third-world that you got it died of it and other then you immediate family no one took note.

I disagree. Except for remote areas of Africa and South America, if there is a death, then there is a government report. Particularly if there is potential foreign aid to address whatever the disease was.

Meanwhile, even in the US, a mild flu will just mean the person stays in bed, takes some Tylenol or whatever, and no doctor is ever even notified.

I'm recalling the much-hyped 2002 SARS epidemic and the 2009 H1N1(swine flu) epidemic, neither of which amounted to much in the US.

[Kartographer]

This is how Gov’t operates...they often know that a crises is coming and send dis-information agents out to divert attention to the fact that they have ‘dropped the ball’. This is especially the ‘modus operandi’ of the present Government.

[Forgotten Amendments]

Whenever I see these stories, I immediately get the impression that CDC is trying to buttress its funding.

BINGO!

Remember the annual AIDS conferences when we were solemnly warned that AIDS had broken out into the general population and a country was doomed? It was a different one every year (Uganda, Thailand, Russia, Czech Republic, South Africa...). They finally gave up that game, I guess.

And of course, we all know it's budget time when NASA announces water/life/whatever on the Moon or Mars.

[Kartographer]

I respectfully disagree with the burial requirements of Islam I am sure it happens in islamic countries all the time as well as those countries which practice quick cremations.