Posted on 06/19/2005 5:51:23 PM PDT by Crackingham
With some 574 people hospitalized with hepatitis A in the Tver region and an initial influx of some 45 new patients each day, regional investigators are looking into a possibility that the outbreak - which began over a week ago and has been blamed on an infection in the water supply - may be linked to a biological attack. The outbreak began in the last days of May in the town of Rzhev, and with hundreds of people getting sick, local authorities were suspecting everything from the tap water to bottling factories.
Early on, the initial culprit was Rzhevpivo, a local plant that produced beer, soda water, kvas, and other beverages. By the end of May, authorities discovered that 85 percent of those who got sick had consumed the plant's products recently. On May 31, after authorities found some of the products contaminated with an intestinal bacteria, the plant was shut down - just as a matter of precaution.
But with the incubation period for hepatitis A spanning weeks, nothing - including Rzhevpivo - has been ruled out. Specialists from leading epidemiological institutes from Moscow and St. Petersburg have been working in the region to try to find the causes, but as of printing time, no one leading version was agreed upon.
Last week, local prosecutors launched a criminal investigation for violations of sanitary regulations, but with no suspects and hardly a clue of where the sanitation was violated. With no leads having been found, a biological weapons attack was still considered as probable this week as negligence at the beer and soda water plant.
Last Wednesday, Russian newspapers purported to draw a connection between the epidemic and the the mysterious murder of an epidemiologist. Leonid Strachunsky, a World Health Organization expert and the director of Russia's Anti-Microbe Therapy Institute, was found dead at a Moscow hotel. He had been hit on the head with a champagne bottle, and some of his possessions were missing.
Therefore it MUST be a simple case of paranoid politicans exploiting any event for their own evil political means, Right?
/Sarcasm off
Islamics are so nasty... I would NOT put a biological attack past them.
Maybe they ate some lettuce from Mexico.
How difficult would it be for the terrorists to attack this way?
Bacterial infection has been known to get into food and beverage processing plants through accident or carelessness.
When we stayed in Portugal for a month some 30 years ago there was an outbreak of cholera (as well as a revolution). We were careful not to drink tap water, but later we learned that the source had been tracked down to a beverage bottling plant.
Hmmm - a microbiolgist killed, at the end of the article...?
Oddly enough, the dead scientist joins a long list. Grab the Reynolds and read the last entry:
http://www.stevequayle.com/dead_scientists/UpdatedDeadScientists.html
Hep A is viral
Are you speaking from experience?
A couple days ago my day started out with toxic shock. I'm pretty sure it was the prepackaged chopped lettuce salad. I don't know why I didn't think I needed to go to the ER. I've had microbiology & EMT training and would have sent me if I was my patient.
No, I only live in S Texas. We have always washed lettuce thoroughly because it might come from Mexico.
Had a conversation with a woman last night that's a nurse with the health department. She said they are encouraging Hepatitis A shots for anyone going anywhere in Mexico these days because of the prevalance of the disease. Apparently Hep A is very bad right now down there and has contaminated everything.
Last Wednesday, Russian newspapers purported to draw a connection
between the epidemic and the the mysterious murder of an
epidemiologist. Leonid Strachunsky, a World Health Organization
expert and the director of Russia's Anti-Microbe Therapy Institute, was
found dead at a Moscow hotel. He had been hit on the head with a
champagne bottle, and some of his possessions were missing.<<<<<<<
Ping..
Ne'mind the water......is it in the vodka???
There are only a very few facts given, but......
Strachunsky, in the hotel room, with the empty champagne bottle.........sounds kinda gay to me!
BUMPAGE!
It really wouldn't be that difficult, but I am highly skeptical of the idea of bioterrorism in this instance, for reasons I'll get to in a bit.
Hepatitis A is an enterovirus. It is spread mostly through contaminated food products such as shellfish, and is found mostly in developing countries due to poor sanitation. Outbreaks originating from a contaminated source are not uncommon. So in theory, it wouldn't be too hard for some nefarious person to intentionally cause an outbreak.
However, I highly doubt that this was an act of bioterrorism. Hepatitis A will make an individual sick for some time, but the person eventually heals. It does not cause chronic hepatitis. Complications such as fulminant hepatitis are rare. And while it can be spread from person to person through activities such as anal sex, it is not easily communicable. So HAV is simply not a good candidate for use as a bioterror agent, because an outbreak will only cause a certain degree of social disruption.
My bet is simply on poor sanitation. However, the source of contamination will likely never be found. Hepatitis A has an incubation period of anywhere from 12-30 days. So quite honestly, I believe the bioterrorism theory is really just a ruse to prevent consumers from avoiding that product in the future.
Thank you for all that information. It probably is the result of poor sanitation and we'll probably never know exactly what caused it.
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