Posted on 04/08/2003 12:14:13 AM PDT by twntaipan
At the same time, Dr. Lin Jui-hsiung, the head of the National Taiwan University Institute of Epidemiology, said that SARS did not appear to be easily spread and that there was no need for people to wear surgical masks.
Lin claims that his hypothesis could help explain why some people seem to have come down with SARS for no explainable reason.
To begin with, SARS appears to be highly contagious only during advanced stages of the disease when the patient is having trouble breathing, Lin said.
At that point, Lin said, there is a large amount of the coronavirus thought to cause the disease present in the body.
It is also during this time when the virus, for a reason as yet unknown, becomes more virile.
During this stage of the disease, the virus can be transmitted over short distances via spittle emitted during coughing fits, Lin said.
However, according to Lin, some of the people who are coming down with SARS did not come into contact with anyone in the late stages of the disease while travelling in mainland China.
Lin suggested that the solution to this puzzle could lie in the fact that the disease can be sexually transmitted.
On this view, the coronavirus causing SARS would be present in vaginal secretions of women who have yet to reach more advanced stages of the disease and could be passed on by way of vaginal intercourse.
Lin went on to explain that it would be unlikely that the disease could be contracted as a result of having sex with a male carrier.
Deputy Minister of Health Lee Lung-teng said he found the hypothesis to be feasible.
Still, he warned that the suggestion is still nothing more than a hypothesis and would need to be proven through further research.
Lee explained that on this view, the SARS virus would thrive in mucous membrane cells such as those in the oral cavity, intestines, or even the vagina.
Earlier reports from Hong Kong have suggested that the coronavirus associated with SARS has indeed been found in patients' feces, giving rise to fears that the disease could be spread through the sewage system.
Something in those cells, he said, would then strengthen the virus, making it more viral and easier to be spread, Lee speculated.
Lin said that his hypothesis was well received by doctors and health officials that he met with during a recent trip to Hong Kong.
One doctor who has treated between two and three hundred SARS patients in the former British colony said that he couldn't think of one single case that would disprove the notion that the disease could be transmitted through the sex act, Lin said.
Lin went on to say that given the possibility of transmission through sexual activity, anyone travelling to mainland China or anywhere else where the disease is prevalent, should "take care of themselves."
That's somewhat Onionesque.
He's not. The article speculates that it could get sexually transmitted female to male in earlier stages of the disease, but that in advanced stages it's virulent enough for airborne transmission.
SARS makes it imperative to include Taiwan in WHO
by Alice Wang
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
Special to the Augusta Chronicle
EVEN AMID THE overwhelming coverage of the Iraq war, another important news item has caught many people's attention recently. And as this story unfolds day by day, it has become more and more alarming.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, has spread to three continents and more than a dozen countries. According to the Associated Press and Knight Ridder news services, researchers at the World Health Organization believe SARS is the same disease that surfaced in China's Guangdong province last November. Chinese authorities originally imposed a news blackout about the outbreak. They finally released data on the epidemic after four months, but by then reported cases of SARS around the world numbered more than 1,500, with 58 deaths recorded. There are 72 cases in 22 states of the United States but, so far, no American has died.
There are also six confirmed cases in Taiwan. All six victims had recently traveled to China. Taiwan's Department of Health has issued travel warnings to its people and enforced quarantine, sterilization and other precautionary measures. But since Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, not only was its call for help on SARS six days late in coming, but Taiwan was not even included in the WHO travel warning.
The truth is that Taiwan will not be spared this epidemic simply because it is not a member of the WHO; epidemics know no political borders. Ignoring Taiwan not only imperils the Taiwanese people, but also opens a breach in the global web of disease containment, thus endangering the health of the entire world community.
RAPID GLOBALIZATION makes a unified front against communicable disease more necessary than ever. Quick and easy international travel means that contagion can travel across borders, or even oceans, in just a few hours. The same mobility that links distant locales also makes isolating an epidemic virtually impossible.
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO's director general, said in a recent interview that, "The illness is a worldwide health threat. The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread." It is unnecessary and - because it takes the collective efforts of every member of the global village to combat this disease - unwise to exclude Taiwan from the world body most involved in fighting it.
The main reason that Taiwan has yet to be admitted to the WHO is because of China's objections. While China's pattern of secrecy about the handling of health issues within its borders is troubling enough, its policy - based on groundless claims over Taiwan - has resulted in the denial of basic human rights for the 23 million people on the island.
In its charter, WHO pledged to serve the interests of "people," not function as an exclusive club to further the political objectives of any "country." This is why WHO not only includes 192 nations as members, but also grants observer status to the Red Cross, Malta and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
TAIWAN MEETS ALL the requirements for recognition as a sovereign state. It is the world's 17th largest economy, and it has one of the most modern health infrastructures in the world, with highly trained medical practitioners ready to lend their skills to the international community. To exclude a willing and capable partner like Taiwan from, at the very least, observer status in the WHO is to deprive the world's sick of a source of help and of hope.
SARS serves as a wake-up call: It is time to admit Taiwan to the World Health Organization.
(Editor's note: The writer is the director of the Information Division of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta.)
You are probably right!
Chlamydia come in sexually-transmitted and non-sexually transmitted types. The most prevalent non sexually transmitted species is Chlamydia pneumoniae which, as you might imagine, causes pneumonia.
Since the "case definition" of SARS will capture large numbers of pneumonia cases who don't really have SARS, it's not surprising that some cases of pneumonia caused by Chlamydia pneumoniae are showing up.
What this has to do with STDs is-nothing.
The evidence that a novel virus, probably a coronavirus, is the singular cause of SARS is quite strong.
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