Posted on 05/03/2003 4:01:22 AM PDT by Judith Anne
It would be nice of lots of folks are getting such a mild case of SARS that they do not know it. This has been researched, and the evidence thus far does not support this.
14% of the Canadians in the "suspected" category who did not go on to full blown SARS had the SARS virus in their body.
The pattern of transmission of SARS does not show many unidentified sources, leading to the belief that there are not many non-symptomatic carriers.
The initial outbreak in Hong Kong was at Prince of Wales Hospital. Most of the staff that got SARS was quite ill, a few were relatively "mild" cases (still took a long time to recover), and none were found with such mild cases that they only seemed to have a mild cold. Obviously some could have been missed, but this is as close to a laboratory setting as you can get.
On balance, it looks like SARS has few mild cases.
NOTE: Even a person with a "mild" case can pass on a severe case. The U.S. CDC has identified situations where a "mild" SARS victim nevertheless caused multiple cases of "severe" SARS.
NO exponential growth in the case numbers either - I'd call that 'containment' (to a degree anyway) ...
I hadn't seen that. I was hoping that mild cases reflected a virus which had mutated into a less dangerous form.
Just about every day, it seems, we have to go back to the drawing board...
I'm on board with this theory too - that MANY cases are not seeing the severe aspect that some experience, hence, no official report to to the authorities.
Without the selection of a random 'control' group from the population at large whose symptoms and current health is recorded day by day we'll never know either ...
BECAUSE, darlin, when SARS first infected China IF the infection rate WOULD HAVE been exponential we would now see case numbers in the six and seven digit range - WE DON'T - and it would be MOST DIFFICULT to obscure 'numbers' that large ...
But that's always true of every virus or bacteria. You can have a mild cold that doesn't affect you much at all but sneeze on someone on chemotherapy or who has AIDS or for other reasons has a weak immune system and they die. Thousands of people die from colds and flus that are only slightly annoying to most of us.
Things are getting rapidly worse in Taiwan right now, but they're taking draconian action there, and it should be only a matter of time before they control it.
A few new cases keep popping up around the world and I think that's going to continue to happen until the virus is controlled like it is in Toronto and Singapore.
All of this progress may be for naught, though, depending on what happens in rural China. The authorities there turned it loose on a population of a billion people, and there are no facilities to control or contain it. It's either going to die out on its own, or it's likely to break out into the general population of the planet, perhaps sometime this coming winter.
If I remember correctly, the Canadians checked every single person, both probable and suspected. That would mean hundreds of people were checked.
The converse is also true. How many listed as SARS actually don't have it? I posted an article on the WHO's guidelines HERE I will quote the pertinent lines:
WHO revises SARS case definition
WHO has today updated its case definition for SARS to take into account the appropriate use of results from laboratory tests. Several diagnostic tests have been developed by various laboratories for the detection of the SARS virus and antibodies to the virus. However, all presently available tests have specific strengths and weaknesses.
For this reason, WHO continues to advise clinicians that patients should not have their case definition category downgraded while awaiting results of laboratory testing or on the basis of negative results.
WHO is concerned that inappropriate use of laboratory results can have a negative impact on patient management and selection of an appropriate level of infection control. Therefore, negative test results for the SARS virus cannot be used to exclude infection in either suspect or probable cases. In contrast, positive results of quality-assured laboratory testing can add to the efficacy of SARS case management, provided tests are properly conducted and interpreted.
Positive virus results from lab tests demonstrate that the patient is excreting virus, or its genetic material, and thus might pose a risk of disease transmission to others. Consequently, suspect SARS cases with a positive lab result (virus isolation or PCR) should be classified and reported as probable cases.
Guidance for quality assurance, particularly for PCR tests, has been posted at the WHO website. See Recommendations for laboratories testing by PCR for presence of SARS coronavirus -RNA
This means that if you have a viral pnuemonia without the positive test you are still considered SARS. Add that to the fact that the only reliable info we have had is from Toronto and their death rate is substantially above the reported death rate for the rest of the world and the numbers for the rest of the world become suspect.
True, which is why I posted the other evidence on this issue as well.
If we were missing any significant number of infected people we would be seeing cases of SARS with no traceable source. We are not (at least in the western world).
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