Posted on 04/23/2003 5:15:44 AM PDT by CathyRyan
Are people from India and Indian sub-continent immune to the fast spreading SARS virus? This question is baffling the medical community, with doctors discussing the possibility of the virus being race-specific.
Some doctors are of the view that people of the sub-continent may have a higher level of immunity to the virus. They reason that with a large number of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lanka frequenting SARS-affected regions like Singapore, Hong Kong and other territories, hardly anyone has contracted the virus.
WHO (Delhi HQ) Information Officer, Harsharn Pandey avers: "It has been almost five months since the first case of SARS was reported from China, and the virus has spread to 23 countries, but not a single case of SARS has been reported from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh".
AIIMS virologist, Dr Shobha Broor says," Viruses are never race sensitive but it could be possible that people from this part of the sub-continent could have developed antibodies to counter the SARS virus."
Although WHO has no race-wise record of SARS victims - both dead and those affected -- available information culled from various sources points out that no person from this part of the world has died of SARS so far.
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the US health department, Dr Julie L Gerberding, during a recent video conference, admitted about the typical race-specific behaviour of the virus and said that in China, Hong Kong and Singapore the ongoing transmission of this virus at a very accelerated pace in "certain communities".
Doctors are also pointing out at the fact that the local transmission of the virus has so far been reported from China, Hong Kong, Canada, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, UK and the USA, while in the sub-continent, people who had tested positive for the virus had brought in the disease from infected nations and the recovery rate is cent percent.
Quoting incidents of SARS, doctors say, the first ever case of SARS in India was reported from Goa where a marine engineer tested positive. The patient, however, responded well to treatment and recovered in almost no time.
In the latest SARS case reported from Pune, three members of a family -- Stanley D'silva, his mother Vimla and sister Julie -- who came to India three weeks ago, tested positive. While Stanley has completely recovered, his mother and sister are responding well to treatment.
Indian Medical Association (Delhi Chapter) president, KK Aggarwal says the so called SARS positive cases reported cases in India may ultimately test negative, as the confirmatory test for the virus on the convalescent sample has to be done after 21 days.
Interesting though.
.... but this article could be part of a strategy. Spread the insinuation that the virus is race specific, so that one country can accuse another of having invented the virus. The quarreling countries get into a fight and a monkey comes to divide the bread among the fighting cats. Nice deal. Not difficult to see who might have a motive in doing this. Only look for who benefits from this exercise
I read an article (in Omni magazine, IIRC) years ago that discussed the possibility of germs targeted at racial or ethnic groups. It didn't seem like very good science, but it was still intriguing. The article focused on germs that would be especially deadly to certain groups. But a strategy using germs that would be especially harmless to certain groups would be equally effective.
Not necessarily poor hygiene but there can be exposure to animal ---especially dog and cat viruses which don't make us very sick but we might still build up antibodies that would give us some cross-immunity. There could be a lot of factors other than race.
It may all come down to garlic!
More than fifty years
ago [!] Mengele, along
with many other
"top researchers," did
extensive and well-funded
experiments on
twins at Nazi camps.
Their genetics "research" was
unbounded by things
like decency or
and standards or ethics.
All of their results
were confiscated
by the Russians or by us,
or became used as
strong barginning chips
by unrepetent Nazis
cutting post-war deals.
Either way, there was
a lot of detailed data
about genetics
available more
than two generations back.
Black op labs can make
a lot of progress
in the course of five decades...
Those who say they doubt
that SARS could target
population genetics
seem like people who
don't know much about
history, and don't know much
about the passion
many seemingly
"educated" people feel
for a "pure" bloodline...
I don't know how common garlic is in Indian cooking. I certainly almost always order garlic nan when I go to an Indian restaurant.
Very common, except for the Jain community who dont eat anything which grows underground, like onion, garlic, potatoes etc.
It will be interesting to see what other animals can get the disease, but I think the suggestion that some race or ethnic group among humans is immune, is crazy. They've just been lucky so far.
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