Causative agent of SARS virus isolated from lung tissue - test is reliably identifying cases

Fox News ^ | 03-21-03

[Mother Abigail]

We know what it is it. It is the SARS virus. But, to which virus family it belongs, we don't know yet," he added.

Some researchers believe it is a new type of paramyxovirus, but studies from other labs suggest it may belong to another virus family.

[Domestic Church]

Have any of those on ribavirin alone (no prednisone or whatever) been discharged yet?

[Mother Abigail]

SARS claims 3rd Canadian life; 2 more fall ill

TORONTO — A third Canadian has likely died from severe acute respiratory syndrome and there are two new cases in Ontario, officials said Saturday.
Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's Commissioner of Public Health, said the third victim had been classified as a probable case and died late Friday. The coroner's office is now investigating the death.

Of the two new cases of SARS in Ontario, one is classified as probable and the other is considered suspect. Both patients are in isolation and had been in close contact with carriers of SARS.

[Mother Abigail]

Unknown

[Domestic Church]

My concern is that the paramyxovirus, serious as it is, might only be part of the key, that something(and it might not be the virus but something, another virus, another bacteria or a fungi that is symbiotic somehow with the paramyxovirus or something totally extraneous and common)...that this something rapidly triggers the immune system into further systemic attack...or that there is something else, some other agent undetected that is causing this.

I hope and pray it is only the paramyxovirus...we can deal with this.

[vetvetdoug]

Paramyxoviradae
Genus Metapneumovirus(No brainer heh?)
This is respiratory so it will likely be closer to the Menanglevirus that broke out from that part of the world about five years ago. Hendra is contracted through urine so it is not suspect. Both of these were carried by bats. I am betting that the host reservoir is going to be some innocuous little furry creature and the virus a mutant from that virus into humans. It could be from pigs, birds(turkeys) and Good God Forbid, companion animals such as a cat or dog. I understand the Turkey Rhinotracheitis Virus is virtually indistinguishable from the human metapneumoviruses.

[Judith Anne]

Thank you for pinging me on this. I've been out of town overnight, and am just now catching up reading all the threads on this. Your links to new threads were very helpful.

I'm amazed at what difference one day makes, and I'm glad this is getting some coverage.

[Endeavor]

You are assuming a vaccine is possible. It takes quite a while to come up with a viable vaccine, not to mention getting it through FDA approval. Not all viruses can be fought with a vaccine - look at HIV. Maybe one day, but we've been working on that since the '80's.

Actually, I do believe that some of these problems will be solved with anti-virals, eventually. A new one was just approved for HIV a week or so ago.

I'm also not convinced our best and brightest will be working on this. I'm not a particularly big fan of the CDC after seeing them botch the anthrax situation. I no longer, quite frankly, trust their judgement.

Many of the best and brightest are at the pharmaceutical companies - and they'll only have a chance to work on this peripherally, initially - diagnostic test kit production. Any drug or vaccine will likely have to come through them - that's years away.

The rest of the "best and the brightest" are at the universities and specialized research institutes. Their work will depend on grant money - which, starting from the time they write the grant, will take at least 1-2 years from now to get a project up and running.

My point is, drug/vaccine discovery is very, very expensive and requires time. There is just no magical can of Whoop Ass outside the Marines.

[Mother Abigail]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Metapneumovirus is the prime suspect, I suppose, but even with all the horses in plain view - I can't help thinking zebras.

Good luck

And good luck to all those fine men and women who are working so tirelessly to give a name to harms unknown...

[Mother Abigail]

Re: Time required to mount an effective response to the SARS outbreak

The old saying about "Nothing focuses the mind like being on the wrong end of a gun" comes to mind.

You may very well be right, which will be very bad news.

Do you view this as a pandemic, in the early stages, where the agent is loose in the population, centered in a closed and lying society, containable only in the most advanced facilities, requiring expensive and rare equipment and drugs to stabilize?

Do you feel that if this agent arrives in any number of third world countries the price of real estate gets real cheap?

And do you think that all species are subject to cycles of sustained growth and sudden calamity?

If you do, then you are not alone.
Judging from my overflowing e-mail.

[Mother Abigail]

Thank you for all your contributions in the past days..

You are a good trooper

[Endeavor]

I don't think we know enough about this thing yet to make too many suppositions. Your questions are enlightening. When you stumble across something entirely new, you have no given spot to put both feet on the ground - that takes establishing what the thing is, and then studying how it works. From that comes 'where'd it come from?' 'do we have something that'll slow it down or stop it?' 'what's different about those that die from it as opposed to those who live through it?' etc.

I don't think all is gloom and doom. It appears at this time, and granted this is with early reports of questionable reliability, that at least health care workers now involved in treating SARS patients are able to remain uninfected by using viral control techniques - masks, gloves, hand-washing, etc. I don't know if they're gowning too, but I would.

But it's really just to early to tell - it'd be nice to see a concise report summary on existing cases, epidemiological evidence, etc. Perhaps that's too much to really ask so soon.

I dunno. Humans aren't my species. (grin)

[Mother Abigail]

The next pandemic is now ready for take-off

(Filed: 23/03/2003)

The devastating effects of a mystery pathogen have given rise to fears of a modern-day Black Death. Doctors say it is not a question of if such a virus will emerge but when - and, as Lorraine Fraser reveals, millions of air travellers could spread it round the globe.

As he shuffled through the lobby of the Hotel Metropole, the elderly professor was feeling feverish and faint. At the lift, he steadied himself for a moment in the open doorway before his body convulsed in a series of wracking coughs that sprayed fine droplets of saliva onto the walls and the people waiting inside.
 
The 64-year-old doctor, from Guangdong province in southern China, was in Hong Kong last month to attend a wedding reception. He never made it. On February 22, he was admitted to a hospital on Hong Kong Island. Ten days later he was dead.

His symptoms had been those of pneumonia but doctors were baffled when his condition failed to respond to conventional treatment. In the end, they could only stand by as his lungs, infected by an unknown pathogen, expanded until they were unable to transfer oxygen to his bloodstream and he suffocated.

He left a deadly legacy. Within days, seven people who had come into contact with him at the hotel had been struck down with the same illness, along with seven hospital staff who had treated him. They in turn spread it unwittingly to others.

By the time the authorities woke up to what was happening, the virus - believed to be a mutant strain of pneumonia - had spread with stunning speed and devastating effect not just around Hong Kong, but across Asia, Europe and America.

It appeared to be the sort of unfolding medical nightmare that terrifies health officials: an unidentified, seemingly untreatable, lethal virus was ravaging the world like a modern-day Black Death.

By yesterday, more than 350 suspected cases of what has now been given the name severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), had been reported to the World Health Organisation. So far, more than 10 people have died. Scores of travellers are now under observation in hospitals around the world, including two in Britain.

The source of the condition is still unclear. However, details about the professor, unearthed by medical investigators in the past few days, suggest a strong link to an outbreak of atypical pneumonia in southern China's Guangdong province, which has affected 305 people since last November, killing five.

Such is the WHO's concern, that it has urged people to call their doctors immediately if they have a high fever (above 38C) and a cough or breathing difficulties after recently travelling to a country where Sars has been reported, or having had contact with a Sars case. The organisation's director-general, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, had no hesitation last week in calling the mysterious illness a "world-wide threat".
Dr Brundtland's strident declaration reflects a genuine concern among infectious disease specialists about the spread of Sars and its risks. But behind them is another nagging fear: the possible threat of a new global influenza pandemic.

The worst pandemic in history, the "Spanish Flu" of 1918-1919, killed at least 20 million people, while hundreds of thousands died of "Asian Flu" in 1957 and the milder "Hong Kong Flu" in 1968. New influenza viruses, some of the most infectious known to man, arise frequently in the Far East.

In China, in particular, the common combination of a dense, young population living in close proximity with farmed animals, such as ducks, chickens and pigs, provides the ideal environment for infectious respiratory viruses to mix, mutate and spread - just as Sars did.

[Mother Abigail]

If I remember correctly, the classic symptoms of a species in crisis include:

1. Increased aggression

2. Sexual dysfunction

3. And disease....

[Mother Abigail]

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