[wastoute]

Curious how health officials or recommending quarantine to prevent the spread of a virus that is frequently fatal. A "certain" virus that is uniformally fatal and can can only be suppressed by taking a number of different, very expensive medications which become progressivley less effective has been spreading rampantly around the world and quarantine was never even seriously considered. Why quarantine folks now?

[per loin]

i have heard no word of attempts to trace Americans who may have attended that funeral or religious retreat in Toronto.

[aristeides]

Two days after her return, the 78-year-old Kwan became sick with a high fever. Her body was already weakened by diabetes and heart problems.

And the man who spread the disease to Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong was a kidney patient. I wonder if the superspreaders tend to be people with underlying health problems.

[aristeides]

By a quirk of the disease, which often leaves the young untouched, his four children did not get ill.

Something to note.

[Cachelot]

Everybody fighting the outbreak — from the World Health Organization to Toronto public health authorities to Scarborough Grace Hospital — claims they have done the best possible job.

Oh yeah... when the first SARS cases hit Canada - all within the same family - they managed to distribute four patients to four different hospitals, with one of them - a child - making a swing into a fifth. They couldn't have done a better job of jumpstarting an epidemic if they had gone around spraying virus with a garden hose.

Just close the borders, blockade the place, and check back in fifty years.

[RicocheT]

Change the word "World" in the headline to "Red China" and you will have the real reason this new disease spread and has become a problem to all of us.

[Hidasta]

Everyone, there is some very important information below:

According to the New York times, yesterday, Toronto's SARS death rate is at 9.5%! This is a MOST serious increase and much more serious than many articles are indicating at this time.

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/science/sciencespecial/18INFE.html?ex=1051243200&en=c0c66bc035169a16&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[keri]

Ping

[CathyRyan]

PANDEMIC UNLIKELY

But the WHO said the threat of a global pandemic was dwindling.

"The vast majority of countries reporting probable SARS cases are dealing with a small number of imported cases," the WHO said in an update on its Web site at http://www.who.int.

"Experience has shown that when these cases are promptly detected, isolated, and managed according to strict procedures of infection control, further spread to hospital staff and family members either does not occur at all or results in a very small number of secondary infections," it said.

What is everyone's reaction to this?

[CathyRyan]

ProMED has a new update 4/19

It is about the diagnostic tests

http://www.promedmail.org/pls/askus/f?p=2400:1001:62708409635019673::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000,21322