SARS May Have Resurfaced, Singapore Says

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore became the first country to report a possible return of SARS on Monday, saying tests showed one man might have caught the potentially deadly disease, hours after the WHO had warned the virus could reappear.

The Ministry of Health said initial tests appeared to show one man had tested positive for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, in what it believed was an isolated case.

"Initial tests seem to indicate this person has the SARS virus, but we are doing further tests tonight," a ministry spokeswoman told Reuters, referring to polymerase chain reaction tests that scientists use to identify genetic material.

SARS originated in southern China and was spread early this year to 30 countries by travelers. It infected nearly 8,500 people globally and more than 800 died, including 33 in Singapore where the government imposed strict health controls. The World Health Organization had declared the global outbreak contained on July 5.

The spokeswoman said the man, whom she described only as being ethnic Chinese, was picked up by surveillance at Singapore General Hospital. He has been isolated at the city state's Tan Tock Seng Hospital, which treated only SARS patients in the last outbreak. The Ministry of Health will hold a news conference on Tuesday at around 4 p.m. (4 a.m. EDT), the spokeswoman said.

The virus, which is believed to have jumped from animals to humans in China late last year, trimmed economic growth forecasts and cost billions of dollars in lost business.

"What's Next?"

The Ethiopian government Friday urged its people to step up their efforts in the fight against the spread of AIDS, saying the disease was spreading at an alarming rate in the Horn of Africa country.

"The pandemic was discovered not long ago, but the rate at which it is spreading is alarming and a matter of concern," the information ministtry said in a statement.

An estimated three million Ethiopians are infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, according to figures from UNAIDS from the year 2000. More than a million have died of the disease since it was first reported in the country in 1987.

Up to 7.3 percent of Ethiopia's adult population are estimated to be HIV-positive. Almost a million children in the Horn of Africa country are AIDS orphans.

Up to 7.3 percent of Ethiopia's adult population are estimated to be HIV-positive. Almost a million children in the Horn of Africa country are AIDS orphans.

I don't disagree that the spread of AIDS is alarming and a world tragedy. However, you're not likely to catch AIDS while innocently vacationing on a cruise ship or riding the subway to work UNLESS you participate in unprotected sex, submit to a transfusion, or you're on the receiving end of an infectious sneeze. I think you understand what I'm saying here. AIDS is in a league of it's own. It's like comparing smallpox with syphilis.

Per Loin,

Here are a few numbers. There is a plethora of information on the internet for you to study. Remember that our data is often two years behind, due to scientific lag time.

On a personal note I will add that there is a growing number of people/sites dedicated to "proving" that AIDS is not real, that Africans are dying of other causes that are being classified as AIDS due to economic considerations, that the epidemic is due to antiviral medications, and often, sadly enough, that these humans deserve to die.

This Holocaust is real. It is spreading thru the human race at an alarming speed, and no one has ever gotten well.

Regards,

The Demographic Impact of AIDS

Estimated crude death rates in eastern and southern Africa are as much as 50 to 500 percent greater than they would have been without AIDS. In Kenya, the crude death rate is estimated to have increased from 6.5 per thousand to 14.1 per thousand population due to AIDS. In South Africa, the estimated crude death rate has almost doubled, from 7.4 to 14.7 deaths per thousand population.

In South Africa, it is estimated that in 2000, HIV/AIDS was the cause of 40 percent of adult deaths aged 15-49 and 25 percent of all deaths. Projections show that without treatment to prevent AIDS, the number of AIDS-related deaths will increase to more than double the number of deaths from all other causes within the next ten years.

The population growth rate in Zimbabwe has been reduced to nearly zero because of AIDS-related deaths. Sharply reduced growth rates are also seen in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia.

By 2003, there will be negative population growth in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Negative population growth has never before been projected in a developing country; it is caused by a combination of high HIV prevalence and declining relatively low fertility.

In the 35 African countries that are highly affected by HIV/AIDS, life expectancy at birth is estimated at 48.3 years, 6.5 years less than it would have been without HIV. The projected population of these countries in 2015 is 84 million, 10 per cent less than it would have been without AIDS.

Life expectancy and child mortality rates, two indicators of development that have shown positive trends in recent years, are now being reversed in parts of Africa. The life expectancy of children born in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe is now less than 40 years of age; without AIDS, life expectancy would have been between 50 and 71.

In the eight African countries with HIV infection rates over 15 percent, it is estimated that a third of today's 15 year olds will die from AIDS.
AIDS mortality is changing the population structure of many African countries. Instead of the "population pyramid" in which there is a gradual reduction in population at higher ages, there is a "population chimney", with a sharp decrease in the number of adults over age 30.

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