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SARS epidemic spreads in Taiwan, three other CDC officials have become ill.
China Post ^
| 03-25-03
Posted on 03/24/2003 5:11:33 PM PST by Mother Abigail
SARS epidemic spreads in Taiwan, 5 more cases reported
2003/3/25
TAIEPI, Taiwan, The China Post staff
An epidemic of suspected severe acute respiratory syndrom (SARS) cases that included the deputy director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), three other health officials and a National Taiwan University Hospital nurse was reported yesterday. CDC deputy director Hsu Kuo-hsiung was reported to have come down sick after working closely on the SARS investigation.
Hsu said it was just a regular cold, though, and that he had already returned to full health.
A nurse at the National Taiwan University hospital who was part of the team that took care of the country's first reported case of SARS is also reported to have starting running a fever.
Unconfirmed reports said that she had been given sick leave after taking care of a Taiwanese businessman surnamed Chin after he turned up ill after coming back from mainland China.
Hospital officials refused to comment on the report.
At the same time, three other CDC officials have become ill.
All three are thought to have worked in the same office with the son of the Taiwanese businessman who seems to have picked up SARS while working in China. The three officials were all told to go home and rest.
The son is considered to be one of Taiwan's six "confirmed" SARS cases, together with his parents and three other people who had recently returned from the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
Those six cases can not be confirmed as being SARS, however, because materials for making such a determination have not yet arrived in Taiwan, according to CDC director Chen Tsai-chin. Chen said that at present all that can be said is that the symptoms being seen are extremely similar to those typical of SARS.
TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: sars; taiwan
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To: Mother Abigail
I have but one single question that I am contemplating.
Can a recovered person become a unaffected carrier?
To: wirestripper
Transmission is only possible during the active symptoms stage of disease, at least so far..
Coughing up little hot bugs from your infected lungs.
I suspect, don't know, that a recovered victim has none of the hot bugs left.
To: Mother Abigail
Hope so..........
To: All
To: Mother Abigail
Thank you for all you are doing tracking this for us and posting all the latest info... this could evolve into a terrible situation for the entire world :-(
45
posted on
03/24/2003 11:24:39 PM PST
by
Tamzee
("Sabotage" and "Charade"....no French translation necessary.)
To: Mother Abigail
If FR gave out medals you would have one by now. Thank you for all your hard work.
To: Tamsey
Your are quite welcome
To: CathyRyan
What a nice thing to say
Thank you Cathy
To: CathyRyan
To: Mother Abigail
To: Mother Abigail
>Unconfirmed reports said that she had been given sick leave after taking care of a Taiwanese businessman surnamed Chin after he turned up ill after coming back from mainland China.
A computer wiz
named Bill Joy speculated
about the dangers
of systems that do
self-replication. His thoughts
did not have pleasant
conclusions. Slow and
steady wins the race. Here's an
excerpt, and the link:
"It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause. Self-replication is the modus operandi of genetic engineering, which uses the machinery of the cell to replicate its designs, and the prime danger underlying gray goo in nanotechnology. Stories of run-amok robots like the Borg, replicating or mutating to escape from the ethical constraints imposed on them by their creators, are well established in our science fiction books and movies. It is even possible that self-replication may be more fundamental than we thought, and hence harder - or even impossible - to control. A recent article by Stuart Kauffman in Nature titled "Self-Replication: Even Peptides Do It" discusses the discovery that a 32-amino-acid peptide can "autocatalyse its own synthesis." We don't know how widespread this ability is, but Kauffman notes that it may hint at "a route to self-reproducing molecular systems on a basis far wider than Watson-Crick base-pairing."" [Why the future doesn't need us -- Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species. By Bill Joy -- WIRED, Issue 8.04 - Apr 2000]
To: Mother Abigail
Taiwan, China: 6/ 0/ Yes There's no such place as "Taiwan, China"
The WHO is reprehensible.
To: Mother Abigail
bttt
53
posted on
03/25/2003 8:08:57 AM PST
by
cibco
(Xin Loi... Saddam)
To: Mother Abigail
To: Mother Abigail
I would like to know how the stats. of fatalities from yearly flu seasons compare to SARS.
55
posted on
03/25/2003 9:16:56 AM PST
by
oceanperch
(Support Our Troops)
To: Mother Abigail
U.S. Flu Deaths Up Sharply Since 1970s, Researchers Say
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
CHICAGO — Influenza has surpassed AIDS
as a lethal killer and contributes to
an average 36,000 annual U.S. deaths,
largely because of a vulnerable aging
population for whom the vaccine is
often ineffective, government research shows.
The U.S. flu-related death toll surged
fourfold from 16,263 in 1976-77 to
64,684 in 1998-99, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
reported in Wednesday's Journal of the
American Medical Association. Those
numbers average out to 16,000 more
deaths yearly than the previous
estimate of 20,000.
Health and Human Services Secretary
Tommy Thompson said the news "that
influenza may be taking an even larger
toll than we have realized"
underscores the importance of flu
shots, especially for older people.
Drug breakthroughs in the mid-1990s
helped reduce U.S. AIDS deaths from
51,000 in 1995 to about 15,000 in
2001. But the main weapon doctors have
against flu -- a vaccine -- has proven
disappointingly ineffective in the
most susceptible population: people 65
and older.
Older people are more prone to flu
complications yet only about 65
percent of them get vaccinated. The
annual shots do not protect aging
immune systems as well as they do
younger ones.
Annual flu shots have been recommended
for people 65 and older since the
1960s and for those 50 and older since
2000.
The flu death toll pales in comparison
to that of the worldwide influenza
epidemic of 1918, which killed more
than 20 million people, including
500,000 Americans.
But the new numbers frustrate public
health experts who had hoped the
development of flu vaccine about 40
years ago would have had a greater
effect.
Vaccination rates are also dismal --
about 30 percent -- for another target
group, people with high-risk
conditions such as diabetes and heart
disease, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a CDC
epidemiologist.
Thompson noted that flu shots are free
under Medicare and said new federal
rules should help increase vaccination
rates by allowing hospitalized
Medicare patients to get flu shots
without a doctor's order.
For the study, researchers developed a
new statistical model to create a more
accurate estimate of flu deaths using
national mortality and virus
surveillance data.
The new model shows that a more lethal
virus strain has hit in recent years,
contributing to the increase in
deaths.
But between 1976 and 1999, the number
of U.S. adults 85 and older doubled.
And the researchers found that this
age group was 16 times more likely to
die of flu-related causes than people ages 65 to 69.
Flu can progress to pneumonia and other life-threatening lung infections and can weaken elderly people, making them more vulnerable to other serious ailments, such as heart disease.
The study also found that older people are disproportionately affected by another respiratory virus previously thought to be more common in children.
The researchers estimate there are 11,000 deaths annually from respiratory syncytial virus, which can cause severe cold-like symptoms and pneumonia.
Their study confirmed that RSV is the most common cause of viral death in children under 5. But to researchers' surprise, the study found that 78 percent of RSV deaths occur in people 65 and older.
"We've known for some time that influenza and RSV have a profound impact on public health," said CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding. "However, these data indicate that the magnitude of the problem is larger than we once thought."
Vaccines against RSV are being developed.
56
posted on
03/25/2003 9:39:43 AM PST
by
oceanperch
(Support Our Troops)
To: oceanperch
While you correctly point out that flu is a killer and is pandemic at times, our concern with SARS is mortality.
Roughly the same number of patients die as are discharged - at this time...
Let us hope that changes
To: Mother Abigail
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