HCW = Health Care Worker
Posted on 05/02/2003 8:39:46 AM PDT by CathyRyan
An excessive immune reaction appears to be the fatal factor in patients who die of SARS, according to medical data from Hong Kong. The best estimate of the fatality rate of SARS is rising steadily and so understanding how the disease causes death is critical to finding the best treatments.
Scientists have also discovered that the SARS virus can remain viable for at least 24 hours after being deposited in a droplet on a plastic surface - a simulation, for example, of an infected person coughing on to the wall of a lift.
The new information was revealed by Klaus Stöhr, the World Health Organization's chief scientist for SARS in a briefing earlier this week. "In the first week or so of disease the virus is replicating mainly in the upper respiratory tract, causing high fever and dry cough. But in the second week we see an over-reaction of the immune response, and in 20 per cent of cases that leads to very severe disease."
Mark Salter, WHO's coordinator for the clinical management of SARS, told New Scientist that this excessive response seems to be destroying the alveoli, the tiny sacs at the end of the lung tubing where the oxygen is absorbed. It is like stripping all the leaves from a tree, he says, making breathing extremely difficult.
"The immune response develops, but then continues growing unchecked" says Salter. "You then get cytokines, tumour necrosis factor and so on released not just at the virally infected cells they are supposed to kill, but throughout the tissue". This also happens in other diseases but the mechanism is not entirely understood, and certainly not in the case of SARS, he says.
Flare up
Nevertheless the observation significantly strengthens the basis on which doctors can select the treatments given to patients. In particular, it suggests the use of corticosteroids, alongside other drugs that reduce the viral load such as interferon.
Corticosteroids suppress the immune system and are normally used against asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and in transplant patients to reduce the risk of rejection.
Their use does raise the risk of further infection, but Hong Kong hospitals are claiming success with combinations of the antiviral ribavirin and pulsed steroids, says Salter: "And once steroids are stopped, they see a flare up of the condition suggesting there is a significant immune component to the disease."
. The issue of how long the virus survives outside the body was also raised by Stöhr. Some scientists have argued that long survival could explain unusual cases of transmission in Hong Kong and Canada.
In a study in Germany reported by Stöhr, the virus was dropped in liquid on to a plastic surface, the drop was dried, and examined after 24 hours. "There were 10,000 virus units per millitre before, and after 24 hours there were 1000 - and that was viable viruses."
Thank you.
You have just proven demonstrated my point ...
It is by no means inconcievable that the Chinese have obtained the designs for western equipment and built knock-offs or even designed their own and manufactured it. Especially when you factor in the pervasive security breaches evident in the trade practices of the Clinton Administration. If Los Alamos was penetrated, then what other facilities may have also been compromised?
Never, never underestimate the capabilities of a potential enemy.
You need to understand, there are people on this site and elsewhere that believe that those that are discussing this, or posting articles on this, are somehow not good Republican's due to the fact that it's hurting the economy and tourism is particular. There are a few that have even made jokes and posted cute graphics to attempt to minimize this nasty disease, and portray those that discuss this as scare mongers and people who are somehow hysterical etc.
Some reports actually have the number of deaths at over 500 with many thousands infected or possibly infected.
*Never* trust anyone who would make a joke about something like this as a means to isolate or minimize economic losses or to shield their particular political party..
China is a leading producer of electron microscopes?
China is a leading producer of automated hi-tech lab equipment?
Furthermore, is it your contention that these facilities *do* indeed exist in the back-woods of China for the purposes of broducing so-called bio-engineered viruses BUT these facilites and supporting infrastructure are invisible to both the naked eye and spy satellites?
Frankly, I don't get your point. I don't think you got mine either, as evidenced by a couple of posts now ...
NEW ORLEANS -- A medical breakthrough in the study of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is taking place in New Orleans.
Researchers at the Louisiana State University and Tulane health science centers have developed a model of the protein suspected to be responsible for the spread of the disease.
The information is being rushed to other scientists who are working on a SARS cure. It may show that certain drugs might be able to help.
It's the type of discovery that doctors normally wait to present at a medical conference or publish in a medical journal. But both health science centers published their finding on the Internet, hoping it could bring researchers closer to a treatment or cure.
LSU's Dr. William Gallaher and Tulane's Dr. Robert Garry are sharing credit.
The model shows that the surface protein attached to the SARS virus is similar to what's been discovered in the Ebola virus and HIV, it gives hope of a cure, researchers said.
"The similarity between this protein in HIV and a couple of very discreet regions is so high that actually, there are drugs in the pipeline that may directly work," Gallaher said.
"We already know that some drugs that work against those similar proteins in HIV and Ebola will block those viruses from infecting the cells," Garry said. "We're hoping to do the same thing with the new corona virus."
SARS can be fatal and is highly contagious through face-to-face contact and shared common surfaces.
The illness usually begins with fever, chills, headaches and body aches. After about seven days, the patient may develop a dry cough. At that point, doctors say too little oxygen will be getting into the blood, causing about 10 to 20 percent of patients to require a ventilator to breathe.
HCW = Health Care Worker
So, it would seem that China would lkely be able to organize enough resources in the bio-medical field to do research and come up with a vaccine on the fast -track
With all due respect, I think that aerospace projects and bio-technology fields are as different as apples and oranges. And to address a previous poster's point, nuclear technology is a different area altogether.
Perhaps the possible inclination to equate these forms of technology comes from the fact that the US has developed all of them simultaneously.
The "Third World" has not, which means that a country can be a Wiz at building nuclear bombs or computers, but have obsolete medical care facilities.
I would appreciate it if you would state your point or points. Be clear and direct. Help us out. Give us a good reason why SARS is not something to be concerned about.
But I don't have any tin-foil take on how SARS has originated. SARS is probably some newly originating virus derived naturally, although I could be wrong. The avian flu virus has not created the havoc that the SARS virus has especially in China.
Personally, I haven't had any kind of flu in years, and I don't know why. (Cross my fingers!) I don't get the flu vaccine, and neither does my family. I get "colds" and "bad colds", but nothing like I've heard about from others who do. How about you?
We do wash our hands fairly frequently, though.
That's more or less the same attitude the Chicoms had until recently, and it's likely to be as suicidal -- even politically -- as that attitude has been for the Chicoms. You'd think people would learn from the example of China.
My point about "Groom Lake Airstrip (abandoned)" (AKA Area 51) as referred to on a map from the early '70s, is that these facilities can exist in out of the way places. This is why the Air Force investigated UFO sightings, to decry the persons who had seen research aircraft. Weather baloons and the mentally imbalanced, right?
The Communists thwarted detection and remote sensing measures very well during the Vietnam war, with the help of Chinese and Soviet advisors, and it would be folly to assume that all construction of facilities requires the grand scale we would use, which would be readily viewable on satellite imaging.
Could a facility for bioweapons research be built without our knowledge? After Clinton's people attempting to cripple our intelligence network, certainly. Even so, spy/intelligence satellites orbit, and orbital windows of opportunity exist for getting things done unobserved, if the perpetrators have patience and sufficient labor, which the Communists have. As for equipment and knowledge, it is obvious that they have it, or they would not have been able to isolate the genome. Creation requires only one lab, a building on a university or technical school campus, not an entire complex. As for brooding the viruses, this can be done in a micro brewery-sized operation which could be hauled in three semi-trucks and hooked together almost anywhere.
You seem to be under the impression that the Chinese are without advanced technological capabilities, simply because they are not the world's leading producers of high tech equipment. Watch them--where are Dell Computers being made now?
Would you, were you the Chinese, admit to having a bioweapons program accident? Would you admit to having a bioweapons program? Not likely. Think like an old line, cold war Communist; things really haven't changed all that much.
While it is possible that this is just another Swine Flu, at least in terms of genesis, I would never assume that the Chinese are incapable of anything. After all, the Chinese Government slew millions of Chinese just to sieze power, and continues to arrest, imprison, and execute its own people just for speaking their mind.
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