Posted on 04/11/2005 1:04:09 PM PDT by Diogenesis
1000's of Children in Ho Chi Minh City with Bird Flu Symptoms
Hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City have been filled with thousands of children who have caught respiratory and digestive illnesses due to the hot weather.
Pediatric Hospital I reported that it had examined nearly 4,000 children patients a day with some 85 per cent of them suffering from respiratory problems, said a hospital doctor.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 children were brought into Pediatric Hospital II on Monday. One-third of the children had respiratory problems and 300 others had digestive problems.
Besides, many children have been hospitalized for brain diseases caused by the entero virus.
The major reason behind the illnesses is that children are sleeping all night with fans on due to the hot weather in recent days.
Recombinomics Commentary: The deafening dearth of data in Vietnam may have ended.
The number of children alone would be cause for concern, but large numbers of patients with respiratory and digestive illness and "brain diseases". in
Vietnam ring alarm bells very loudly.
Serious H5N1 testing is indicated, although results from Quang Binh, Haiphong, and Quang Ninh have not been reported.
Bird flu monitoring in Vietnam is well beyond scandalous.
Same here, no sick time. I have seen people come in to work dead sick.
My wife and I just took my MIL to visit some family for her birthday. They had all been sick with some sort of vicious sinus infection. One sister was still in the hospital. Did any of them suggest we wait a while to visit? Nope.
The attitude is, "Hey, I survived. You might as well suffer, too." They'll never grasp the concept until it is too late.
Our much vaunted hospital system -- while far superior to the rest of the world -- is not much better than a giant petri dish for nosocomial infections.
I shudder to think of just one early Marburg case being picked up by an ambulance and taken to an ER, and admitted for care, with NO IDEA what they were dealing with.
Talk about a lot of dead people walking...
UNC study finds soap is better
3/11/2005 9:33 AM
By: Associated Press
Soap Works Better
A new study from UNC Chapel Hill suggests just soap and water work better than any other hand hygiene product in getting rid of disease-causing viruses.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Mom was right.
A new study by infection control specialists at UNC Hospitals confirms that the best way to get germs off your hands is with plain old soap and water.
The researchers tested 14 hand hygiene agents plus tap water against specific bacteria and viruses applied to the hands of 62 adult volunteers. Soap and water, or microbial soap and water, proved the most effective at removing viruses and bacteria.
"Based on these findings, I'd put my hands in my mouth after routine sink washing for 10 seconds," said Emily Sickbert-Bennett, a public health epidemiologist with the UNC Health Care System and the UNC School of Public Health.
Sickbert-Bennett is the lead author of the study, conducted as part of her UNC public health master's degree work from 2000 to 2002 and published in the March issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.
Volunteers doused their hands in common, hardy strains of a bacteria and virus, washed their hands using one of the methods for 10 seconds and then measured the quantity of remaining germs.
The study divided the hand-washing agents into three methods: five waterless alcohol-based rubs, two waterless hand wipes with chemicals, five hand-wash products with anti-microbial agents, plain soap without antibacterials, and tap water alone.
The volunteers doused their hands in common, hardy strains of a bacteria and virus, washed their hands using one of the methods for 10 seconds and then measured the quantity of remaining germs.
They repeated the steps 10 times to measure each method's effectiveness after repeated exposures.
After just one wash, hand gels and soaps worked about the same, removing 99 percent of the bugs.
But after multiple washes, regular soap and warm water was most effective at removing the virus. For bacteria, anti-microbial soap was the most effective, removing 99 percent of bacteria after multiple washes. Regular soap and water was the next most effective, followed by tap water alone, and then hand rubs, the researchers found.
Hand wipes were the least effective, getting just half the germs.
The germs used in the study are more hardy than the flu virus, Sickbert-Bennett said, so any cleansing method capable of wiping out the test virus is almost certain to be even more effective against flu.
The UNC researchers looked at 10-second scrubs, rather than longer washes studied in past trials, because they found that 10 seconds is the average time UNC health care personnel actually spend washing their hands.
Soap and water works better over repeated use because water removes germs by washing them down the drain, Sickbert-Bennett said.
"(With) the waterless rubs and wipes, you never rinse your hands," she said. "You are just rubbing a chemical into your hand and letting it dry."
Hand-rub solutions are still considered highly effective, especially if there's no available alternative.
"The hand gels have basically really found their place in hospitals," said Dr. Jeffrey Engel, state epidemiologist. "Hand gels in hospitals are always accompanied with a hand-washing policy."
But he said hand gels are less effective if hands are visibly soiled, such as when children became violently sick by a strain of E. coli bacteria linked to a petting zoo at the State Fair in the fall. A Department of Agriculture task force is reviewing petting zoo sanitation policies.
Very informative post, thanks. ;-D
So, how do you get out of the public bathroom?
When you are finished, get your paper towel first (no blower drying), then wash your hands, dry your clean hands with the previously retreived paper towel, use the same paper towel to open the door. It will act as a barrier between you and the door handle and if your handwashing technique was sufficient it's still a clean paper towel, just a little damp. Dispose of the paper towel in the nearest trash receptical.
For starters have a look at the following link:
Chicken little post of the day award. This excerpt is from an actual news article that is far less alarming, like a flu-season article in the US. The post is from a web-site of a guy hyping his own technology in the viral field. Do you people bother to question these alarmist posts as much as you question the left-wing media?
By the way, if any of you think there will be a mass pandemic killing 30-40% of the world's population, I'll buy your current assets at 50% on the dollar. Surely the global economic crisis resulting from such a pandemic will destroy asset values regardless of class. Anybody want to take me up on that offer. With fewer people housing demand will crash, property values will crash. I'll buy your house today at 50% of appraised value and lease it back at 75% of your current payment. I'll buy your equities and bonds - think of the economic devestation across industries - at 75% of current valuation.
Now I know you'll all have some good excuses why not to take me up on this offer.
Why not? We are still finding weird plants from seeds that were blown in from Africa by Hurricanes Fran and Floyd.
That's a very good reason to get cracking on the problem NOW!
BTW, North and South America went through this sort of thing between 400 and 500 years ago! Just devastating.
I won't sell you my stuff because:
a. I plan on surviving the pandemic(s).
b. If indeed it/they come to pass, your money won't be worth $hit.
I will, however, make sure to check in with you should these diseases spread to the US - to see if you survive with no preparations. That means no anti-virals or other meds for you unless you want the hypocrite of the year award.
You haven't been following this problem closely have you?
No, he's one of the "it didn't happen with SARS, so it can't happen with anything else" or "our technology has prevented a pandemic for the last 87 years, why worry" types. Whistling past the graveyard invincibility. Damn I used to hate having those types in my platoon - they always turned into mortar or grenade magnets.
As expected, an excuse. Surviving the pandemic won't return your assets to their previous value. Liquidate now, before it's too late! Then you can buy assets that are likely to appreciate - not the least of which would be the hard currency of the US, or gold, or food stocks - whatever you'd like.
And must I swear anti-virals or other meds prior to the pandemic, or only in the event of the pandemic. I think I should be allowed to medicate at least up until the event.
By the way, did you bother to follow the links and scrutinize the source of the information. Did you bother to read the actual aritcle.
I agree. I would like to know how much of an increase this is from a regular year's rate of illness. It could be many things some which occurs on a reoccurring basis and it not that far outside the norm. Also, I don't know if I buy the airborne Marburg theory. It seems if it was truly airborne there would be many, many more people sick than there are currently.
With jet air transport there is no buffer in this entire world anymore. Sorry.
Which problem am I not following? The potential for human-to-human transmission of bird flu? Nope, I'm read up on that. Potential for airborne transmission of Marburg? Nope, I'm read up on that. Neither are likely for reasons you'd need to crack a biochemistry book to understand.
Influenza is the greatest threat, but the world, while smaller due to air travel, is also cleaner and has progressed in terms of public health by orders of magnitude since the 1910's. Yacking about 30-40% of the world's population dying is just hot air.
The girls will definitely notice!
Technology has not prevented a pandemic, biology has. I worry about many things, but they are things that have a likelihood of happening greater than winning the lotto. I am hardly invincible, simply rational in most of my fears. I do fear bear attacks when hiking in BC and Alberta, despite the low probability. I also fear a cougar will eat my children if I let play outside the RV in the same areas.
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