Posted on 04/05/2003 1:52:43 PM PST by EternalHope
Experts predict spread of mystery illness
- - - - - - - - - - - - By DANIEL Q. HANEY
April 5, 2003 |
Can severe acute respiratory syndrome be stopped? As hard as public health officials work to stamp out the virus, many experts reluctantly conclude it is likely if not inevitable that it eventually will spread everywhere.
The highly contagious disease has already sickened more than 2,000 people, and new cases appear daily in Hong Kong, despite an all-out effort to isolate victims and quarantine those at risk.
Experts acknowledge that the eventual course of any new disease is almost impossible to predict. Some frightening new infections have burned themselves out, while others, like AIDS, have become global disasters.
However, several features of SARS make epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease experts fear total victory is unlikely.
"Will it explode into a major epidemic that will propagate over the years? Or will it fizzle out or be contained at a low rate? That's unknown," said Dr. Lee Harrison of the University of Pittsburgh. "I suspect we will see this disease for at least the next several years. It's hard to imagine it will be over soon."
Perhaps the most ominous sign is the steep climb in new cases, especially in Hong Kong, which has had a nearly fourfold increase in just two weeks. Each person who gets it may spread the infection to several others before they even know they have it.
While many are infected through face-to-face contact, evidence is mounting that the virus may also spread through the air or be picked up from contaminated surfaces.
On Friday, President Bush gave federal health officials the power to quarantine Americans sick with SARS, although there is no plan to use that power now. There are more than 100 suspected cases in the United States, but no one has died.
"Most people are hesitant to say it will just go away," said Dr. Ruth Berkelman, head of Emory University's Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research. "Too many people are infected to think we won't see it for a long time to come."
Besides quarantining the sick, health officials have tried to minimize SARS' spread by urging people with suspicious symptoms not to fly on airlines.
However, some experts worry that those who are clearly sick may not be the biggest concern.
People catch bad colds from friends who have mild ones. And the same may be true for SARS. Those who have slight symptoms or even seem perfectly well could still spread the disease. In such a scenario, isolating the sick and quarantining their contacts will not work.
"We may be able to slow transmission, but we won't be able to stop it if there are many other cases of milder disease out there," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan epidemiologist.
Although the cause of the outbreak has not been proven beyond doubt, investigators say most evidence points to a previously unknown version of the coronavirus, the bug that causes about a third of all colds. Some who study this family of viruses say that because it spreads through coughs and sneezes, they cannot imagine totally wiping it out now that it has infected so many people.
Some suggest that even if this outbreak dies down, the virus could pop up again with no warning or it might follow a seasonal pattern, like colds and flu.
Just how it acts in the long run will depend on its genetic makeup and origins. Birds and other animals have their own versions of coronavirus, and some of them cause much worse disease than the human type. Researchers say SARS may be caused by a coronavirus that moved from animals to people. Or perhaps it is a standard human coronavirus that picked up menacing genes from an animal version of the virus.
Such leaps have happened in the recent past. The hendra virus spread from horses to people in Australia, while the nipah virus went from pigs to humans in Malaysia. However, neither bug then spread from person to person.
But SARS has found a home in humans. Experts say it could grow less virulent as it reproduces inside the human body and then passes on, or it might grow worse.
Whatever happens, the virus is likely to change over time, says Dr. Michael Lai of the University of Southern California, a coronavirus expert. This variety of viruses mutates and swaps genes frequently.
"The severe problems we are seeing right now might represent a very small minority of the coronavirus infections," Lai said.
The World Health Organization is still officially optimistic. "We think it's possible that this disease can be beaten back, that with more effort this doesn't have to get out of hand," said Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman.
Such an outcome is far from definite, cautioned Dr. James Hughes, infectious disease chief at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He called SARS "an urgent global public health threat" and added: "I think we had better all keep an open mind here. We've seen it spread very dramatically and very rapidly."
BTW: I found this in a Google search. Honest! I don't read Salon! (pre-emptive flame retardant applied)
I also found the same article listed by Google at several other sites, but it had already been removed at each site. It lasted less than two hours at each site.
It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't.
Spanish flu: 2.5% of those infected died (the worst flu the U.S. has had)
Typical flu: 0.1% to 0.2% of those infected die.
SARS: 3% to 4% of those infected die, if computed simply by dividing the total number of deaths by the number of cases.
However, SARS is so new that most victims are still sick. Some of the sick will die, and some of those who live will have permanently damaged lungs. If you take yesterday's statistics from Hong Kong, you will find 17 have died, 99 have recovered, and 645 are still sick. With numbers like these, it is simply too soon to know what the statistics will end up looking like.
We don't even have a reliable way to confirm a diagnosis of SARS. The United States has elected to err on the side of caution, reporting SARS on a "Suspected" basis. Some of the "suspected" cases are already being re-classified as something else. In other words, SARS cases in the United States are jumbled up with other kinds of pneumonia, making current statistics for SARS in the United States meaningless.
If you want statistics about SARS, Hong Kong is your best bet (statistics from there may not be accurate either). If you want to read about how SARS started in Hong Kong, first hand, then go here:
A top doctor's report from Hong Kong
It's relatively short, and a good read.
I've a bad feeling
about this all this SARS business.
If this is check out
time, I'd like to say
Thank You to everyone at
FreeRepublic, and
I'm glad our last days
gave us a chance to spend time
with such decent folks.
The People of the NEW WORLD ORDER that RUSH laughs about have been advocating the killing off of 80% of the worlds population for years.
It looks as if they found a way to kill off a lot of people without taking any blame.
This type of disease is just not natural. It looks as if they start these plagues in obscure areas of the world that has a lot of (USELESS EATERS,their words), hoping to get them to die off in great numbers.
I had an RN tell me that one of the best things you can do in regards to certain types of "bugs" around is to wash your hands. She said what used to be taught as something important years ago is taken for granted that folks know to do today. And many do not wash their hands, even after going to the bathroom.
I think the other thing is courtesy. It is slightly gross when you go to grab a doorknob and it is wet and slimy. Ugh. Maybe Howard Hughes was onto something! LOL
Lastly, people something do not know their limits. A couple of years ago, I had an employee that came into work, puking and hacking like mad. I TOLD him to go home. He did not want to and I said "I'll not have you spread what you have to the rest of the staff in the suite because you are stubborn". He ended up being able to get some rest.
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