Posted on 05/21/2003 6:22:35 PM PDT by EternalHope
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:39:24 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Offering a dire warning to Congress, a panel of top doctors said Wednesday that the nation should plan for a possible multi-city outbreak of SARS by next winter and that the United States is not ready to handle such an epidemic.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Personally, I don't go to the doctor unless I've had some nasty symptoms for at least 4 or 5 days. With SARS, I could be a regular Typhoid Mary if I thought it was just a cold.
Far more so, IMO. So much that I really can't get too worked up over the raise of the alert level.
What are the terrorists going to do? Send someone in on an airplane infected with a horrible, highly infectious disease that kills about one in five of it's victims?
Oh wait, that's probably already happening.
Congress was listening. Was anything heard?
My sister was worried what to do about terrorists when the Iraqi war started. I told her not to worry about terrorist, SARS is the one to keep your eye on.
Oh brother ... that's all we need is these ninnys wound-up in a hysterical tear ...
From: http://www.nature.com/nsu/030505/030505-4.html
SARS hits hard
- but control measures seem to be working.Death rates higher than expected, but control measures seem to be working.
8 May 2003TOM CLARKE
inset: Sars is less likely to cause as many deaths worldwide as flu. © WHO/P.VirotNearly half of the elderly people admitted to hospital with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) die from the disease, according to the most thorough analysis of the outbreak so far1.This sounds bad, but it is comparable to death rates from influenza. Among those under 60 years of age, the mortality rate is far higher than for flu: some 13% of those with SARS die from it.
"It's a relatively high fatality rate," says one of the study's authors, epidemiologist Azra Ghani of Imperial College, London. But this doesn't mean that SARS is more dangerous than flu, she says: "It's much less transmissible than flu and is therefore much less likely to cause as many deaths worldwide."
The study, based on data from Hong Kong hospitals, also provides estimates of the incubation period and severity of SARS.
It takes an average of 6.4 days for a person infected with SARS to show symptoms, the researchers found. Three to five days passed between the onset of symptoms and admission to hospital. This period shortened as awareness of the disease spread.
These figures are in line with previous estimates made by public-health workers and the World Health Organization (WHO). They also suggest that the strategies so far used to contain SARS have been the right ones.
"Based on these data, the control efforts are exactly what they should be," says epidemiologist Ira Longini of Emory University in Atlanta.
The strategy has been to detect SARS cases as early as possible and isolate them from the population. Reducing the time between detection and isolation is currently the best way to curb the epidemic.
Unanswered questions
Crucial questions about SARS remain, some of which could change the study's conclusions.
"The big question is what proportion of infected people get only a mild infection and don't go to hospital," says Longini. If the number is high, SARS is less deadly than the new results suggest. It also means that the true number of SARS cases - and therefore how difficult it will be to contain the epidemic - remains unknown.
The only way to find out is to develop a rapid test for the virus and to screen those in epidemic areas. "I'd put extreme emphasis on that activity," says Longini. The WHO and its partners are working towards a SARS test.
Another key question is for how long virus carriers can infect others for before they develop SARS. "At the moment we don't know about virus shedding in mild or sub-clinical cases," says virologist Albert Osterhaus at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Osterhaus is working on this question using a SARS-like virus in animals.
Important new insights into the disease's spread may come from studies of a high-rise housing block in Hong Kong that was quarantined during the epidemic. But these data will not emerge for several months, says Longini.
References
Donnelly, C. A. et al. Epidemiological determinants of spread of causal agent of severs acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong. The Lancet, published online, http:// image.thelancet.com/extras/03art4453web.pdf (2003).
"SARS is an epidemic that is still in its evolutionary phase," he said. "It has extraordinary potential. The death rate is alarmingly high."
CONTRAST the statement I just posted above with the part of the article I posted in bold, then riddle me answer to this question:
Who is fear-mongering during this 'crises' and who is conducting research in pursuit of answers?
That's what I'm thinking ...
I just *know* you people read all these researched and well thought-out studies, but I'm not so sure that others do - so here's a little excerpt from the Discussion section of the reference cited at the end of that Nature article posted above:The estimation of case fatality rates in the situation of an emerging epidemic is not straightforward.To sum it up - the *actual* mortality rate of SARS could be markedly lower than those so far issued, cited and quoted by so many 'news' organizations as posted by a number of you ...First, our estimates are derived from data on clinical cases that have been admitted to hospital and, hence, estimate the mortality rate only in this population.
Second, the temporal evolution of the epidemic complicates analysis.
Finally, the estimates of the case fatality may vary dependent on the methods used and their underlying assumptions, although the estimates we present have statistical validity. All these issues require further investigation as the epidemic evolves, and explain partly the wide range of mortality estimates reported to date.
...
The reported cases to date in Hong Kong and elsewhere may simply reflect people with the most severe clinical symptoms of infection with the new SARS virus. We estimated the case fatality rate based on cases in hospital only.
If additional infections in the community do not lead to admission to hospital or death, the case fatality rate based on all infections would be lower. Community-based serological surveys to assess infection and recovery rates are a priority once a specific and sensitive serological test is available.
'Story' told to congressman:But the doctors told the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that the United States was lucky to avoid any deaths this year because winter ended just in time. They said respiratory diseases are typically more serious in the winter.Hmmmm ... this seems to fly in the face of the aforementioned/cited study - which one do you suppose is 'blowing the most smoke':Finally the warm season has begun in Hong Kong, with daily temperatures now at 25–30ºC. The seasonal risks of dengue and influenza will increase, and if serious outbreaks occur, they will complicate the triage of patients with possible symptoms of SARS. Thus, measures that can be taken now to limit further transmission, such as the shortening of the onset-to-admission interval, should be given high priority.It seems to me these folks are more worried about the weather now that it has turned warm - as if it presents a more favorable environment for various contagion than does winter time ...
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