Breaking News: World Alert on Mystery Disease (Broke 1 Hour Ago in Australia)

Herald Sun.UK (Australia) / AP ^ | 3/17/2003 | AP Staff

[ex-Texan]

Breaking News: World Alert on Mystery Disease (Broke 1 Hour Ago in Australia)

THE World Health Organisation has issued a rare emergency travel warning that a mysterious form of pneumonia poses a worldwide health threat.

The disease, known as atypical pneumonia, which has killed four people and hospitalised scores of others, is spreading from Asia around the world. Most outbreaks of the highly contagious illness have been reported this past week in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.

In the latest fatality, a Vietnamese nurse died at the weekend after having earlier treated an American businessman who also died of the disease.

Canadian health officials reported that two people who recently arrived from Hong Kong died in Toronto.

In Frankfurt, Germany, a doctor who treated a patient with the illness in Singapore had to be taken off a New York-Singapore flight yesterday during a stopover and was hospitalised. Two other people accompanying the doctor were also taken off the flight with symptoms and 150 passengers temporarily quarantined.

"Until we can get a grip on it, I don't see how it will slow down," said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. "People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals.

"It's a highly contagious disease and it's moving around by jet. It's bad."

The Geneva-based WHO said that in the past week it had received more than 150 reports worldwide of the atypical pneumonia, which it called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

"SARS is now a worldwide health threat," Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, said in Geneva.

"The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick, and stop its spread."

The advisory said there was no reason to restrict travel but urged people to seek medical attention if they had travelled to infected areas and have symptoms of the illness, which include coughing, high fever and shortness of breath.

SARS also may be associated with headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, confusion, rash and diarrhoea.

Epidemiologists from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in Vietnam yesterday to investigate the outbreak there. A separate team of French doctors was expected to bring medicine and respirators.

Samples were rushed from Hanoi to Atlanta and will be tested immediately to try to determine the cause, said Dave Daigle, a CDC spokesman.

The Hanoi outbreak started after an American businessman travelling from Shanghai via Hong Kong apparently infected up to 31 hospital workers, four of whom were listed in critical condition, including a French doctor.

The American was evacuated and died in Hong Kong.

[EternalHope]

Read the posts on this thread: early SARS info

Several posters copied entire articles into the thread, so it is a good source of info. The following is from post #6:

In addition to the breathing problems, the illness can cause a dry cough and other flulike symptoms, which apparently develop about four to five days after exposure. They usually start with a sudden onset of high fever and go on to include muscle aches, headache, sore throat and shortness of breath. Standard laboratory tests often show low numbers of white blood cells and platelets, which help blood clot.

Although some victims remain stable and others seem to get better for two to three days, they eventually relapse, developing acute respiratory distress. Some need to have a tube inserted in their windpipe to help them breathe.

Among the survivors, "no one has gotten well yet," Dr. Heymann said in an interview. "It is not clear what is going on, and it is not clear what the extent of spread will be," particularly because "these are areas where there is a lot of international travel," he added.

To the best of my knowledge, "No one has gotten well yet," is still the most current information available.

For the person who started this thread to conclude that the fatality rate is over 90% was entirely reasonable given the information as currently known. Fear that this might spread panic is not a reason to jump on the poster, or to claim that stating his conclusion was irresponsible.

[photogirl]

I hope you and your mom are okay. You will be in my prayers.

[dixierose]

Someone that I work with emailed me an article about the American in Hong Kong last week. I remember getting a feeling of dread when I read that article. As someone else posted in this thread...it brings on terrible thoughts of "The Stand" disease (I think it was named Captain Tripps or something like that).

[Sandylapper]

Calce! I've been listening to this on TV and thinking about you! Hope you're better and aren't a victim of this. Keep us posted.

[Movemout]

Just because nobody has fully recovered it does not follow that there is a 90% mortality rate. I see from your profile that you are well educated. With an MBA you must have taken at least one course in statistical analysis. Apply probable infection rates and known mortality rates for a more probable outcome. This disease seems to have some unusual features but not enough facts are available yet to draw any substantiated conclusions.

[Mother Abigail]

The fatality number currently being used is OVER 90% of the cases. The reason they are using that high a number is that thus far, NO ONE has recovered. Until someone gets well, they have no way to estimate the fatality rate.

There have also been two cases in British Columbia - unrelated to the Ontario infections - where one person remained in hospital Saturday and the other has recovered

Seven more people -- including five hospital staff -- have developed symptoms of the virus in Singapore, bringing the total number of cases to 16, the health ministry said on Saturday. All the patients, except for two that have been discharged, are in a stable condition, it said.

You come and see me child

[sytole]

Actually, this article in the Vancouver Sun has a different take on the survivor story. Says the person had symptoms but did not have the infection. I know that sounds weird but it may just be that the person was paranoid or something and had thought she had symptoms. Anyway, it appears that this person did not get the disease and then survive.

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id={2E481BC5-255F-459C-B85F-855C68109409}

[Carry_Okie]

While it is true that no one has made a FULL recovery from this disease, of the 350 cases in China (not exactly a place with sophisticated hospitals), only 11 have died.

Hardly universally fatal.

[Maeve]

God give rest to her soul and comfort to her family and blessings to her baby.

[sytole]

The statistics from China are being treated with a giant grain of salt. They seem to be completely out of whack compared to the ones from Singapore and Vietnam and now Canada.

[Mother Abigail]

In Frankfurt, Germany, hospital officials who were monitoring the Singapore surgeon said his condition had slightly worsened Sunday. His mother-in-law had a high fever, and his pregnant wife appeared to be OK, they added.

The 32-year-old doctor, who was not identified, was taken off a Singapore Airlines New York-to-Singapore flight during a stopover in Frankfurt, the Associated Press reports.
The surgeon had treated one of the earliest cases in Singapore, and had then flown to a medical meeting in New York City, according to Thompson.

He may have gone to a hospital in New York -- the agency did not know which one -- before flying back. Before boarding the flight, he called a colleague in Singapore to describe his symptoms, and the colleague notified WHO officials,

The New York Times reports.
A New York City Health Department statement issued late Saturday said that the surgeon was in stable condition. In an interview with the city health officials, the statement said, the doctor told them that he had flown in on Wednesday, left on Friday, had had minimal contact with people in New York City and had attended the medical conference for only a few hours.

[per loin]

I'm no epidemiologist either, but I've enough of a statistical sense to realize that the numbers here are not coherent.

[Maeve]

Bump.

[Maeve]

Since this story broke, I keep singing What a friend we have in Jesus.

[Maeve]

Isn't Michael Savage a PhD epidemiologist? I wonder what he has to say about this. He reminds me so much of the character Kathy Bates played in the TV version of The Stand.

[Movemout]

Thanks for the update. I note that the surgeon's condition has been stabilized.

[Mother Abigail]

"His wife, who had similar symptoms but no infection, has been discharged. No other family member or hospital staff who came into contact with him has fallen ill."

What type of infection is it that they tested for child? We do not know if this is viral or voo doo - and we certainly do not have a screening mechanism at this point.

But that is what it says, very nice catch and thanks for the additional information

You come and see me, and bring your nice friends

[EternalHope]

Apply probable infection rates and known mortality rates for a more probable outcome.

I suspect you are lumping two separate things together. Infection rates and mortality rates are not the same thing.

Nothing has been said in any source I have seen about infection rates. Could be high, could just as easily be low.

Mortality rates are not the same thing. They refer to the number of people who die, once they get it in the first place.

The mortality rate thus far is impossible to calculate because no one has gotten better. Based on the condition of the people who are sick, and the known fact that it does not respond to any known treatment, it looks like it will be high.

And yes, I do understand statistics. I even taught it for a year at the University of Washington. Based on your comment, I suspect you are suggesting multiplying the infection rate times the mortality rate to get the overall outcome to expect within the population as a whole. This may or may not work. The problem comes when you have multiple exposure opportunities. If enough people are sick, then the relevant number will be how many people are naturally resistant, not how many people will get sick from a single exposure opportunity.

[realpatriot71]

The fatality number currently being used is OVER 90% of the cases. The reason they are using that high a number is that thus far, NO ONE has recovered. Until someone gets well, they have no way to estimate the fatality rate.

That would mean that the morbidity rate is @ 90% not the mortality rate.

This is NOT flu or pneumonia in any traditional sense. It is referred to as "atypical" pneumonia only because one of its affects is fluid in the lungs.

"atypical" only really refers to the fact that this pneumonia is not caused by the "usual suspects" - almost any viral pneumonia can be called "atypical". Every few years a new flu viral recombinant naturally occurs.

Thus far, nothing has been found that affects it. Even more alarming, they have not even found the organism that is causing it.

If it is a virus, none of this is surprising

[Straight Vermonter]

Does that imply that there is a hemmoragic component to this as well as the respiratory?