Posted on 06/11/2003 1:16:45 AM PDT by per loin
D'Cunha wonders why U.S. has such low SARS numbers
Puzzled by lack of American deaths
Health Canada looks for answers
Dr. Colin D'Cunha said he's puzzled by the low number of reported SARS cases in the United States, and the fact that no deaths have been reported. "There are cities in the U.S. that are large gateways to Asia and Hong Kong and, yes, we have good health systems and we can catch people but I'm just not seeing that many cases in the U.S.," D'Cunha said in an interview yesterday. "It has me scratching my head and saying, `Are they missing cases? Are they picking them up but these cases are not meeting the classification?'" As of June 9, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 311 suspected SARS cases in the United States, 69 probable cases and no deaths. Yet Canada has had 33 deaths with a similar caseload, D'Cunha noted. "Just looking at the figures, they have me scratching my head," said D'Cunha. "How certain are they that some of these possibles haven't moved to probables?" He said a number of suspect cases usually move quickly to the probable category. Dr. Paul Gully of Health Canada confirmed that the department is following up on D'Cunha's concerns. Gully said D'Cunha had raised questions for two days but they weren't treated urgently because Gully wasn't aware they were major concerns. There was no comment yesterday from the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta. But Dr. Donald Low, a key member of Ontario's SARS containment team, challenged D'Cunha's suggestion. Asked if the charge was valid, the chief microbiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital said: "No, it's not." Low said the difference between the U.S. and Toronto's experience can be explained by one event: the infection of Toronto's index case in Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel on Feb. 21. A Chinese doctor who had been treating SARS patients in Guangdong province — where the disease first surfaced — infected about nine other guests from various parts of the world. He sparked the outbreaks in Hong Kong, Hanoi, Singapore and Toronto. "That one incident ... probably accounts for 99 per cent of the disease that we've seen outside of China since Feb. 21," Low said. The United States isn't the only country to have successfully dodged the SARS bullet, he noted. If fact, most have. "The United States was fortunate," he said, "as was the U.K., as was Germany, Spain, Portugal, any of the European countries or any country in South America." Low has worked with two CDC teams who travelled to Toronto to help contain the outbreak. One is still working seven days a week investigating the second outbreak at North York General Hospital. He said the U.S. agency is supportive of Toronto's efforts to beat SARS. D'Cunha said it would be a matter of concern for Canada if U.S. SARS cases are not being accurately reported to the international community. "Then I'm saying we're not playing by the rules on the international forum." Greater Toronto has suffered a huge economic impact due to SARS. "There's a perception of risk out there and that impacts us in more ways than one," said D'Cunha.
CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Ontario's chief medical officer of health is raising questions about the credibility of American SARS statistics and has asked Health Canada to seek clarification.
| HONG KONG (AFP) - A two-year-old boy has died in Hong Kong after contracting anthrax, the government said Tuesday. Although there was no indication yet of the source of the infection, there was no evidence the boy was the victim of a bioterror attack, a spokeswoman said. "There is no evidence that this was a biological attack," Department of Health consultant Dr Tse Lai-yin told reporters. Tse said health officials are investigating the source of the boy's illness, and that his family neither kept pets, nor did he recently come into contact with any animals - a common form of transmission. His symptoms and a post-mortem showed he most likely got sick from eating "contaminated food or some other object." "We suspect he consumed uncooked contaminated meat as the source" since the boy's diet consisted mainly of pork and fish, Tse said. The boy began displaying symptoms of anthrax - abdominal pains, vomitting and diarrhoea - on May 27 and died May 30 in hospital after slipping into a coma, she said. "It was most definitely not inhaled," she said, adding that doctors only diagnosed the cause of the boy's death as anthrax on Tuesday. Members of the boy's family, who have been put under medical observation, have not shown any similar symptoms, Tse said. She also said the illness doesn't appear to have spread to anyone else the boy might have come into contact with, including other pupils and teachers at his nursery. "This is a sporadic case so far but we have to investigate further," Tse said. Inhalable anthrax ground into powder form was delivered in letters to media outlets in the United States in late 2001 sparking fears of a bioterror attack following the September 11 terror attacks. "We are concerned by this case because anthrax is a very rare disease in Hong Kong," Tse said. According to the Department of Health, there has only been three other cases of anthrax reported in the territory in the past 20 years. Two cases occurred in 1982, and the last fatality was a 13-year-old boy who succumbed to the disease in 1994, she said. The anthrax case has emerged just as Hong Kong is getting over an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which has killed 290 people in the territory in the past three months and inflicted huge economic damage. But Tse said area hospitals had been alerted to the anthrax death, and that there was no need for a wider emergency response system to be implemented. "We just need the public to maintain good personal hygiene and make sure their food is cooked very very well," she said, adding that there was no need for the public to fear a larger outbreak of anthrax.
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I gonna go back to bed. It's way too late.
Doctors and nurses could be transmitting the disease to the patience and to their impatience.
I'm series.
</sarcasm>
So I did a spreadsheet on what little US data there was and came up with some interesting observations...
[First, remember that per loin and other researchers have pointed out that in Hong Kong, SARS DEATHS took 36 days on average, and SARS RECOVERIES took 24 days on average. This holds approximately the same in other countries too, from what I've seen]
Out of our current ACTIVE U.S. caseload of 35 'probable' cases, it seems that...
I was able to coax a little more observation from the charts related to RECOVERIES...
So far as I can calculate RECOVERIES...
It does seem like we are dangerously close to having a few deaths in the US.
Many of our cases have gone on longer than the worldwide average for recoveries or deaths, or for that matter, even longer than OUR OWN track record for recoveries.
And there are 27 patients past 36 days. Amazing! Or terrifying?
Start reporting deaths in the US and see what happens.
>>>They must be on ventilators, right?
That would be my guess too
>>>What else would/could the care be?
Dunno
>>>Do you have any way of knowing where these 3 people are?
No, skimpy U.S. data prevents it.
It is impossible to go backwards and look at prior dates(from anywhere other than the WHO website). And It is never known on a state by state basis where 'probable' patients have recovered or 'suspected' patients have recovered.
>>>When these 3 are taken off ventilators they will die, right?
>>>So, how many in America are being KEPT ALIVE on ventilators that will die when taken off? Dunno, Dunno
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