SARS Causing Quarantines Around The World!

[DcupSheepNipples]

In the end, Gulf War II may be a footnote in history compared to SARS!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37343-2003Mar27.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2892837.stm

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/03/26/quarantine030326

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030327_1428.html

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=8&theme=&usrsess=1&id=10623

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,179767,00.html

http://www.health24.co.za/news.asp?action=art&SubContentTypeId=72&ContentID=21577

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3300949&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&ncid=751&e=5&u=/nm/20030327

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2462222

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/03/27/mystery.illness/

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2461301

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...ar27,0,3079301.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...&e=5&u=/nm/20030327/hl_nm/pneumonia_taiwan_dc

http://content.health.msn.com/content/Article/62/71673.htm

SARS - Singapore And Hong
Kong Both Close Schools
3-26-3

SINGAPORE (AFP) - The mystery respiratory disease spreading across Asia claimed a second victim in Singapore, as schools closed in the city state as well as in Hong Kong in hopes of containing the creeping illness.

A Protestant minister who fell ill after visiting an infected parishoner was the second reported Singaporean victim of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a local television station reported.

Health ministry officials earlier said the first victim was a male patient, but declined to give other details.

Some 600,000 students will be kept out of school until April 6 and at least 861 people in the city-state are now under orders to stay home in a bid to contain the spread of the mystery illness.

Education Minister Teo Chee Hean said at a news conference international schools are advised to "also close if they wish to do so."

While Hong Kong authorities ordered only six schools to close their doors because of the outbreak of the mystery virus, more than 50 did so voluntarily Wednesday, according to education and manpower department figures.

Media reports suggested, however, the number of school closures exceeded 100.

Parents across the region were gripped by uncertainty, and rumors the disease was spreading beyond control gripped densely-populated Singapore, where the number of SARS cases rose to 74, with 10 patients in serious condition.

SARS has already been blamed for 10 deaths in Hong Kong, four in Vietnam and three in Canada.

The disease was brought to Singapore by three local travellers who had visited Hong Kong, where they were believed to have been infected by a mainland Chinese doctor who eventually died.

Singapore has strongly advised against unnecessary travel to Hong Kong and Hanoi, and Guangdong province in southern China -- strongly suspected to be the origin of the outbreak.

Chinese state media, citing a local government report, said Wednesday that four cases of atypical pneumonia had been identified in Taiyuan, the capital of northern China's Shanxi province

Two victims remained in hospital in Shanxi, with no new cases of the virus reported since March 11.

The municipal health bureau of Shanghai, China's commercial center, said no cases of the mystery virus had been reported there, but said an emergency plan had been adopted to ensure any outbreak was treated immediately.

Canada has issued a travel advisory warning visitors away from Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Guangdong, and Singaporean Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang also said it was possible other countries could follow suit.

"Very soon, people will look at us and put us in the same category as Vietnam," he said.

Tourism is a major earner in the city-state, generating about nine billion Singapore dollars (5.11 billion US) in revenues last year.

At least 34 deaths from an outbreak of atypical pneumonia in China could be SARS-linked, but experts have yet to establish a direct connection.

The former British territory of Hong Kong, under Chinese rule since 1997, has asked for an extra 200 million Hong Kong dollars (25.6 million USD) to battle the outbreak as residents become increasingly edgy.

Chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa said Wednesday it was imperative the government adopt "more effective measures" to halt the spread of the disease, which manifests itself as a form of pneumonia.

"The present situation is serious," he said. "It is imperative for us to adopt more effective measures to prevent the virus from further spreading."

A total of 487 cases of SARS have been reported in 12 countries, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO, in a statement issued Tuesday, said that despite the outbreak it "continues to recommend no travel restrictions to any destination."

Lim said that the strategy remains isolation of victims and suspected cases through quarantines and restrictions on visits to hospitalised victims.

Hefty fines will be imposed on those who break the 10-day quarantine, which was imposed under the rarely invoked Infectious Diseases Act, and visitors to homes of quarantined people should be limited.

Copyright © 2002 AFP.

And who let the outbreak go unchecked for some time? China!

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=593713AD-C9BB-44F4-815F590DB115D1D7

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/5496922.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030327_515.html

 

[plornive]

Hong Kong is the worst place for this shit to happen. I'm in Hong Kong now and I wear a mask when I go out. But to put things into perspective, only about 1 in 20,000 people (and I am being generous) have been infected in Hong Kong.

 

[plornive]

Ok I just read that 800 people are infected accross the border in Guangdong. This better be kept under control in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is a business hub and a travel hub.

 

[AustinTX]

It's only going to go downhill now that it is widespread enough to have its own acronym....

 

[Baoh]

Have they determined what kind of Biological agent is involved?

Cultures should have been grown by now.

 

[danielson]

probably a virus

but damn we screwed. i dont see this not spreading. bad time to be a health worker

4% fatality rate though

 

[DcupSheepNipples]

You work your whole life as a doctor/researcher and you get your big break and identify a mystery illness! You should be on top of the world with your notoriety! But instead you die by the hand of SARS! Lifes a bitch!


WHO researcher dies of SARS
Last Updated Sat, 29 Mar 2003 14:59:44


HONG KONG - The doctor who first identified Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as a 'mystery illness' has died of the disease.


INDEPTH: SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Dr. Carlo Urbani, 46, died in Thailand where he had been receiving treatment. An expert on communicable diseases with the World Health Organization (WHO), Urbani became infected while studying the infection in Vietnam.
SARS has sickened more than 1,400 people globally and killed 54.

The WHO says the illness originated in China.

In Hong Kong, 58 new cases of SARS were reported Saturday. Thousands of people have donned surgical masks in public. An antiwar demonstration was cancelled and much activity in the bustling city has ground to a halt.

At least 425 people have been infected with SARS in Hong Kong and 11 have died.

Elsewhere, Singapore nearly doubled the number of people quarantined to more than 1,500 on Friday.

Australia advised its citizens Saturday to reconsider travelling to Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Vietnam.

Taiwan said Saturday its SARS cases had risen from 10 to 12. Officials handed out 100,000 free surgical masks to travellers and employees at its main international airport, which was being disinfected.


FROM MARCH 28, 2003: SARS screening to be expanded

There were 59 cases of SARS in the United States and at least 35 in Canada, where three people have died.

 

[Baoh]

Reminds me of "The Stand". Creepy.

 

[DcupSheepNipples]

CDC: Mystery illness spreads more easily than first thought
From Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical Correspondent
Saturday, March 29, 2003

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The mystery illness that has sickened 1,550 people worldwide appears to spread more easily than was first thought, said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Earlier this month, when cases of the mystery illness started appearing in North America, health officials thought it could be spread only by close, face-to-face contact, such as that which occurs between a doctor and a patient or among family members.

The disease, which has killed 54 people in 13 countries, most of them in mainland China and Hong Kong, is called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

"The potential for infecting large numbers of people is great," Gerberding told reporters Saturday. "We may be in the early stages of what could be a larger problem. On the other hand, this is new and we have a lot of questions about the overall spread."

She added that the death rate of SARS is relatively low. About 3.5 percent of people who get the disease die from it. The rest recover, usually within about seven days, she said.

"If there's any good news about SARS right now, it's that the majority of patients do appear to recover, and the death rate is lower than what we see with influenza epidemics," she said.

Rapid spread throughout communities in Hong Kong and Vietnam suggests the infectious agent causing SARS might be airborne, meaning that the disease could spread even without face-to-face contact, Gerberding said.

In addition, she said, the infectious agent might survive on inanimate objects, such as tabletops, infecting others that way.

The CDC also extended its travel advisory for SARS on Saturday to include all of mainland China as well as Hong Kong; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Singapore.

Evidence points to a never-before-recognized strain of coronavirus as the cause of SARS, according to the CDC, which is working to devise a diagnostic test to distribute to state health departments.

Coronaviruses typically can survive for two to three hours on inanimate surfaces, Gerberding said.

In the United States, most of the 62 infected people had recently returned from an affected country. Five of the cases lived with an infected traveler, and two are health care workers who cared for SARS patients in the United States.

Most of the U.S. cases are being cared for at home, where they have been ordered to remain and wear a mask. Family members have been advised to call their doctor if they get headache, fatigue, a fever or cough -- all symptoms of SARS.

Gerberding said it was unlikely someone could get the illness simply by sharing a public place, such as an elevator or an escalator, with an infected person.

"The bottom line is we don't know, but what we can tell from the pattern of transmission so far is there is no evidence in this country that those activities would pose a risk," she said.

 

[fl8meplz]

Ever notice that this shit ALWAYS comes from China???

What the fuck is happening in China to cause this shit to happen? Are they mainlining feces??? I mean FUCK!! Wake up chinaman! Take a fuckin shower, clean your under your nails, and wipe everything you own or see down with name brand bleach!!