SARS cases pass 6,000; more than 400 dead

upi ^ | 05/02/2003 | Michael Smith

[Judith Anne]

TORONTO, May 2 (UPI) -- The number of SARS cases continued to rise Friday, reaching more than 6,000, as a Hong Kong researcher reported that the virus linked to the disease appears to be changing rapidly.

The global total of probable and confirmed cases of the pneumonia-like disease reached 6,054, according to the World Health Organization, up 207 since Thursday. The global outbreak has now claimed 417 lives, up 26 from a day earlier.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong say they have evidence that the so-called "coronavirus" associated with severe atypical respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is mutating rapidly.

Pathology professor Dennis Lo said genetic sequences of the virus found in 11 patients showed that there were at least two variants circulating in the region.

The coronavirus "is undergoing rapid evolution in our population," Lo said.

Whether that's good or bad is an open question, he said: "It can either change it into a more virulent virus (or) on the other hand it can make it into a tamer virus."

Microbiologist Don Low of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, one of the leaders of the SARS fight in the Canadian city, said he has seen no evidence that the virus is mutating but wouldn't be surprised if it was.

"It's an RNA virus, so it doesn't have a repair system," he told United Press International.

That means that errors that creep in as the virus multiplies aren't corrected and thus are passed on to new generations.

But Low said, usually those errors are "bad for the organism," making it less able to survive and perhaps less dangerous to humans.

He cautioned that even if the virus changes so that it causes less severe disease, that might not be a good thing -- people might not get sick enough to go to a hospital and therefore would spread SARS more easily.

Toronto officials criticized U.S. news reports that suggested Canada had delayed reporting a case of SARS in order to help its case that the WHO warning against travelling to Toronto should be lifted, which happened earlier this week.

"It's total, utter, and complete nonsense," said Colin D'Cuhna, the chief medical officer for the Canadian province of Ontario. Toronto is the capital of Ontario.

D'Cuhna told UPI that Canada has reported all of its probable cases -- those in which there's X-ray evidence of SARS infection -- as soon as possible and didn't hide anything from the world body.

In fact, he said, WHO officials were in Canada this week for an international meeting on the progress of the SARS battle and made no complaints about how the Canadians had handled their outbreak.

Toronto, said D'Cuhna, is "on the cusp" of defeating the disease and being taken off the WHO list of affected areas, which currently includes China, Canada, Taiwan, and 24 other countries.

China continues to be the hardest hit, with 176 new probable SARS cases Friday, 96 of them in Beijing. Eleven new deaths were reported, accounting for a cumulative total of 181 deaths.

The Chinese government sees no quick end to the outbreak in Beijing, even as officials opened a new hospital -- built in just eight days -- to cope with SARS.

The deputy director of the city's health department, Liang Wannian, said similar numbers of new cases -- about 100 a day -- can be expected for the foreseeable future.

"I think it will take us a long time to eliminate this disease," he said.

But he said the outbreak might be stabilizing and "I believe the number of patients will drop in the future, but it is hard to say when."

WHO said China might still not be protecting its health-care workers well enough, suggesting that infection control -- outside of designated SARS hospitals -- is still not effective and "may need to be modified."

Among front-line health workers, 15 new cases were reported in Beijing. There are now 300 infected health care workers in China.

[Judith Anne]

One in a million has SARS, in the space of a few months.

[Judith Anne]

One in a million might not sound like bad odds to most people, to me, it's a matter of grave concern...thoughts?

[Judith Anne]

FYI

[ricpic]

"He cautioned that even if the virus changes so that it causes less severe disease, that might not be a good thing--people might not get sick enough to go to the hospital and therefore would spread SARS more easily."

To me, that's the most frightening thing I've read about SARS, by far. After all, I mutating virus can mutate into a weaker strain, spread through a much larger percentage of the population, and then re-mutate into a deadly strain again.

[Judith Anne]

I agree with you. There is a lot of absolutely useless knowledge about this virus...each year, like clockwork, Americans get a vaccine tailored to that year's flu, but there won't be one for SARS

[mewzilla]

The only time I ever ended up in the hospital for an illness was when I had an awful case of the flu. I'd gotten the flu shot that year. Just got a strain they didn't vaccinate for. If the virus is mutatating, they may have to vaccinate for more than one strain or pick a strain to vaccinate for, and won't that be fun...

[Judith Anne]

I found this interesting comment on the sidebar of another posted SARS article, sorry I didn't keep the link, but it's in the forum:

"On the new SARS scale of illness, I had a very mild disease. But I was in the hospital for nearly three weeks. And it's a month later and I'm still recovering," she said.

This is from a health care worker. She's been down two months, and is not well yet. As I said on that thread, imagine hundreds of HCWs sick with this, in the middle of an outbreak in, say, Chicago, and those HCWs are unavailable to the sick for 2-3 months....

[Judith Anne]

It's the article titled: China blocks borders over SARS.

Here's the web address of the article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/02/health/main552139.shtml

[Reaganwuzthebest]

With summer coming on there's a good chance the disease will die out. If it doesn't, by next winter the potential for this thing really exploding is huge, especially the way it's mutating.

[Judith Anne]

Yes, I'm nervous about that.

[LuisBasco]

The deputy director of the city's health department, Liang Wannian, said similar numbers of new cases -- about 100 a day -- can be expected for the foreseeable future. "I think it will take us a long time to eliminate this disease," he said.

I can't help but "speculate" that perhaps this is a Chinese biowar experiment, no doubt intended for Taiwan-or North America, that escaped the laboratory.

[Judith Anne]

It's entirely possible that you (and others, like Betty Jo) are absolutely correct about this being a biowarfare ploy that has gone out of control...lending support to that theory is the story, now largely forgotten, of all the international, world-class microbiologists who died, were murdered, committed suicide, or disappeared over the winter of 2001-2002. I have seen no authoritative person anywhere who is willing to rule out bioterror.

Or it could simply be another flavor in nature's stew.

Either way, lately I have been generally focussing on the implications for the average American, and particularly on the implications for those who will be dealing with the illness, health-care workers.

There is so little useful information...if it were bioterror, it would be nice if the "inventor" also invented a cure, treatment, or vaccine...

[Nebullis]

I just made a little graph of numbers infected over time and it's a nice exponential curve. Just 2 weeks ago researchers were relieved that the growth rate appeared to be linear.

[Conservative Me]

You and I share the same idea of where the disease may have come from. When I first thought about it I thought I had a paranoid conspiracy theory, but in today's world, IMO, it is not that far fetched.

The mortality rate is almost 7% according to these numbers...very scary. If this was a bioterror product, they have a good indication of the effects. Let's hope they make a vaccine or some kind of effecitve treatment soon.

[Judith Anne]

Thanks, I saw that. I wouldn't have believed linear numbers anyway, they wouldn't make sense. Do you by any chance have an update you'd care to post?

[verity]

One in a million might not sound like bad odds to most people, to me, it's a matter of grave concern...thoughts?

You are concerned.

[aristeides]

Is the growth exponential anywhere besides China? (By the way, China is having to catch up with its prior lies, which would mean an unnaturally high rate of growth in that country.)

[harpseal]

One in a million has SARS, in the space of a few months.

That is because the incidence has gone from 1 in 6 Billion to one in a million in a few months. Exponential growth of the number of cases does not bode well.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The number of SARS cases continued to rise Friday, reaching more than 6,000, as a Hong Kong researcher reported that the virus linked to the disease appears to be changing rapidly.

Or, more likely, they don't have a clue as to which virus is causing it.

[harpseal]

There are certain things we do know which indicate exponential growth which is the normal way the number of cases for a communicable disease such as SARS will increase. We still do not know the rate of growth per se. China's past lies ghave deprived us of good data to determine that. For that matter we do not even know that China is now telling the truth.