SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns

Reuters ^ | 6-18-03

[Prince Charles]

SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns

Wed June 18, 2003 03:04 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Like deadly flu epidemics of the past, SARS may reemerge later this year as a global health threat, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

Dr. Julie Gerberding pointed out that infectious diseases like SARS and monkeypox are spread around the world by travelers or by trade in exotic animals.

"This is the new normal: emerging infectious diseases ... that create immediate global concerns because of the movement of people and animals," Gerberding said in a speech to the American Medical Association's annual meeting.

Gerberding compared SARS to flu epidemics early in the last century that appeared to subside, only to erupt again with the change of seasons and kill millions.

"The risk is not over as any moment another patient could emerge," she said.

The World Health Organization said this week the worst was over in the battle against SARS and lifted a travel warning for Taiwan, leaving Beijing as the only place with an advisory in force.

But the United Nations agency said health authorities must stay alert for fresh outbreaks of the disease that killed almost 800 people and infected about 8,500 since it emerged late last year in southern China.

Gerberding said the number of cases was "definitely dwindling" but the Northern Hemisphere's fall and winter could witness another outbreak.

"Our next priority is to develop a rapid diagnostic test," she said. "We now know there are milder forms of the illness where people may not have symptoms. What we don't know is if these people can transmit the virus."

The monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. Midwest this spring caught health authorities by surprise, she said, and showed how the movement of people and animals around the globe posed health risks. There have been roughly 80 non-fatal human cases so far traced to pet prairie dogs, with the infection traced to a Gambian rat imported from Africa.

She said no new human cases of the deadly West Nile virus appeared in the United States so far this spring, though the CDC was tracking bird and mosquito virus carriers and expected the deadly illness to reappear this summer. Last year, there were more than 4,000 human cases and 284 deaths.

[per loin]

[per loin]

I posted the above chart because it oddly coincides with a couple of interesting periods in SARS history. At the time of the initial outbreak in November, there is a spike of activity in Ligand shares, but they continue to drop in value until SARS escapes China, the low point on the chart. Since then they have climbed steadily. Does Ligand have a product in the SARS field?

[Wordsmith]

His account got suspended yesterday due to some funny business on a thread that got nuked. He may be back. He got banned for a few days last week for publically posting from a private freepmail. He got banned for a few days last month for getting caught using multiple screen names.

[CobaltBlue]

Here's a link to Ligand's "pipeline" of drugs being developed. I don't see anything that would be useful against viral infections. My guess is that the increase in share prices is due to Targretin being approved for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.
http://www.ligand.com/products/pipeline.htm

[CobaltBlue]

Bad guess, probably Avinza, extended release morphine, approved March 2002. Caveat, I don't know jack about biotech.

[TaxRelief]

This is some recent history for The Great Satan:

http://library.cshl.edu/symposia/1988/participants.html

[TaxRelief]

That was the link for a different post: Here is the Great Satan....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/finduser?user=thegreatsatan


Sorry...

[CobaltBlue]

TGS does seem to know an awful lot about Hatfill, and to be tireless in his defense, even to the point of making accusations that someone other than Hatfill faked Hatfill's faked diploma in order to make Hatfill look bad. Very weird.

[Prince Charles]

Complicating matters, tensions between WHO and Chinese authorities have deteriorated, with WHO's Manila chief, Dr. Hitoshi Oshitani, decrying China's recent lack of cooperation in supplying sufficient new data about the epidemic. Oshitani charged that China won't cooperate in global scientific inquiries and even has kept its biologists out of the international cooperative research network created by WHO.

As ever, the red Chinese are still lying through their yellow teeth.

[Wordsmith]

In fairness to TGS, I believe his position is that Hatfill's fake diploma was actually created recently by Hatfill as part of his role in a US covert op meant to draw public attention away from the real source of the anthrax. IOW, that Hatfill is a spook willingly being set up as a "person of interest".

[Betty Jo]

Post # 119

"has kept it's biologists out of the cooperative research network"

Tha would be "The Global Public Health Intelligence Network" GPHIN

[TaxRelief]

Everything you've ever wanted to know about ZOTS but were afraid to ask...

[CobaltBlue]

>>Hatfill is a spook willingly being set up as a "person of interest"<<

Wow. I have to hand it to conspiranoiacs. They are far more imaginative than ordinary folks like me.

Let's see. Hatfill is posing as a lone American nutball in order to avert attention from the fact that the Amerithrax* incident was a plot of the US government? So he fakes a diploma that was already faked?

BTW, doncha love "Amerithrax"? Talk about presupposition already built into the investigation. I mean, if they called it "Iraqthrax" you wouldn't wonder where it came from, right?

[IYAAYAS]

That took much longer than I thought it would.

[CobaltBlue]

>>That took much longer than I thought it would.<<

I have no idea what you are talking about. Should I?

[_Jim]

I am not quite brave enough to leave my name and number on a tape.

But your NUMBER has already been logged by his caller ID gear or at least by the telco equipment providing him his telephone service ...

BRILLIANT.

[_Jim]

I see that SARS is still the "unknown untreatable designer virus"

AND you're qualified to make that kind of statement?

Hi God ...

[_Jim]

In less than a year, Henry Niman says he went from the amateur web site host of "Links to Ligand" to the target of a troubling smear campaign.

Hmmm sounds like michael redvero was involved ... WHEN he isn't busy embellishing the 'plight' of the palestinians ...

[_Jim]

Hatfill is a spook willingly being set up as a "person of interest".

Right now, he's playing 'target' for Madame Rosenburg's target practice.

I'll bet you even money he's not involved.