SARS: India on red alert

Hindustan Times ^

[riri]

maybe they don't want anyone to know what they know,

That has crossed my mind.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Certainly sounds plausible. For all we know this could wipe out some other primates as well and even other mammals since the closest thing we can compare it with is a rat virus.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993637

SARS virus is mutating, fear doctors

"...The much higher rate of diarrhoea in Amoy Garden cases supports the idea of an altered tissue preference, meaning a viral strain that can attack the gut as well as the lungs..."

"...This switch mirrors effects seen in several animal coronaviruses. A bovine gut coronavirus, with some genetic sequences similar to the SARS virus, can also cause severe pneumonia in cattle. And in the 1980s, a pig gut coronavirus suddenly mutated into a respiratory infection in pigs..."

"...These switches involved mutations in the viral genes coding for the spike proteins, which form the protruding halo that gives coronaviruses their name. Luis Enjuanes and colleagues at Spain's National Centre for Biotechnology in Madrid have switched the pig virus from a mild respiratory infection to a virulent gut infection solely by changing the spike protein gene. Ominously, the gut form replicated much faster..."

Cows and pigs, a major basis of rural industry...

[Domestic Church]

I haven't had my head in a microbio text or lab since '78...very rusty would be an understatement.

[Fitzcarraldo]

and birds (poultry):

"...Science journals are reporting that some parts of the virus code are similar to an Avian (bird) bronchitis virus..."

Sars: A test of limits to medical expertise

Perhaps investigators should innoculate test animals other than monkeys to see the effect...

[panaxanax]

Nothing is being reported yet. She wouldn't and couldn't disclose anything but the fact that there are the 2 confirmed cases.

[Domestic Church]

Back a few months there was talk of it being similar to the cattle shipping fever but I thought that was bacterial.

Time to load up the freezer with half a cow.

[riri]

Time to load up the freezer with half a cow

Will we have electricity?

Only half joking.

[blam]

"Time to load up the freezer with half a cow."

I 'laid-in' some additional supplies this morning.

[per loin]

Suspected SARS patient hospitalised
Nashik, Apr 22 (UNI) A computer engineer employed with a Bangalore-based firm has been hospitalised here with suspected symptoms of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Girish Kishanchand (23) resident at Motwani Road here was admitted in the Nashik Civil Hospital last night, civil surgeon Dr M D Patil told UNI today.

Kishanchand has been staying here for the last two months and was to return to Bangalore soon. He was suffering from cold and fever for the last two to three days and was initially admitted in the Jairam Hospital here. The doctors suspected that he had symptoms of SARS and intimated the civil surgeon. He was then shifted to the civil hospital.

The civil surgeon Dr Patil assisted by Dr Ramesh Korgaonkar have diagnosed symptoms of pneumonia. He has been put through an X-ray and blood samples would be sent today to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. The blood test results should come in after 48 hours, Dr Patil said. The patient had sound sleep last night, he added.

The civil hospital and other hospitals have received a notice from the health department directing them to be prepared to admit SARS cases and take all precautions to protect other patients undergoing treatment for a variety of ailments. All the staff in hospitals have been advised to don masks as a precaution.



 

[CathyRyan]

A silly question but how long are you planning for?

[riri]

I would love to hear what other folks are doing and thinking of doing to prepare to try to avoid getting this. Seriously, it helps me to know I am not going completely insane.

Because in 20 minutes when I venture out of my house, no one will seem to have a care in the world.

[the rifleman]

I have always been a survivalist and have retreats in both the Ozarks and northern Wisconsin. If this bug mutates as fast as the experts contend that it might, the world is in a lot of trouble. The globilists will not be able to hold things together. Probably will mean war in the end when economies falter.

But to answer your question, I can last a couple of years without human contact. Wont be fun though.

[dljordan]

Man you just don't know! I was in Kathmandu, Nepal a country that borders India, on an expedition in 92'. There were people with LEPROSY begging on the street! Their noses were falling off! They have very little in the way of medical care or sanitation. If it gets started over there these poor people will die in the thousands. The upper classes there really don't care about helping the poor.

[CathyRyan]

Guess I will get a little extra of everything I get now.

[Dog Gone]

One of my brothers lived there for a couple of years.

[Malsua]

can be traced directly back to one apartment building that could've been quarantined

And before that, to the cat that someone had for lunch???

I think most folks here don't realize that most of China predominately uses "Eastern Style" "Toilets". They aren't really toilets. They are holes in the floor.

A little bit of uhm splatter and it's all over. Not to mention, dropping trou, guess what your pants lie in?

[riri]

Yikes. My mother in law is from Thailand. I am not kidding when I say her bathroom resembles that. I honestly do not know if she has ever really cleaned it. How she managed to raise two boys without killing him is beyond me. Luckily, she lives in another state.

But, get this---she is a nurse.

[Gritty]

About tests. :)

Re your #20. Thanks for the link.

What it seems to be saying is there are a number of tests that may be given but their reliability are open to question and they do not give a complete or even relatively foolproof picture. The tests are changing constantly not only because the virus seem to be mutating, but also newer and more definitive tests are evolving. Plus, costs of testing can be a factor in testing suspect cases.

In other words, diagnosis is still a crapshoot.

[Dog Gone]

I'm guessing that if I had one of those, I might not spend as much time reading the newspaper.

[HiTech RedNeck]

UGH!!!