More good news in the world... Mystery bug doctor dies

[Tingkai]

Bugger it! Two people in the office have gone home with a fever. I might be quarrantined. And I just moved so I don't have Internet access!

[Demerzel]

Hong Kong health officials have ordered the residents of an apartment building to be quarantined for 10 days in an effort to control a deadly new virus.

With the number of cases in the territory reported to be at least 622 on Monday, 213 have been linked to the Amoy Gardens housing estate in urban Kowloon where the block is situated.

Policemen and dozens of health workers in surgical masks, caps and coats are in the estate where current residents of Block E - said to number 700 - have been ordered to stay at home until midnight (1600 GMT) on 9 April.

The virus, known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), has infected more than 1,550 people and killed at least 54 worldwide since first surfacing in southern China in November.


ouch

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/2901607.stm

[lightblue]

When I worked on my PhD on immune response to viruses, the influenza (yes I know this is probably not quite influenza) expert said we were long overdue a pandemic. Because of the long period between the pandemics we are more susceptible to reorganised flu genomes.

The Hong Kong chicken flu from a few years ago was a warning. This looks as though it might become as serious as the 1918 Flu Pandemic, although treatment with Ribavirin and other antivirals seems to work if it is caught early. This makes the 4% casualty rate even scarier...

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Frogger


I'm pretty sure we've got a handle on it now.

Ontario Public Health has gone schizoid and has quarantined a couple of thousand people for 10 days...

I thought the quarantine in Toronto was only volountary at the moment. (which makes it pretty useless)

There's been cases of it in New Brunswick and BC aswell.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by lightblue
When I worked on my PhD on immune response to viruses, the influenza (yes I know this is probably not quite influenza) expert said we were long overdue a pandemic. Because of the long period between the pandemics we are more susceptible to reorganised flu genomes.

The Hong Kong chicken flu from a few years ago was a warning. This looks as though it might become as serious as the 1918 Flu Pandemic, although treatment with Ribavirin and other antivirals seems to work if it is caught early. This makes the 4% casualty rate even scarier...

Its unlikely that the mainland chinese have been using Ribavirin to any great degree. From what I've seen with their handling of HIV and blood products, they seem to take the attitude that "yeah a million died, but we've got lots more where they came from"

I've been very concerned about this virus (combination ?or has that been debunked yet). People worry about ebola etc, but this could cause a real pandemic since it is virulent and more contagious than expected.

At least Canada has taken the right approach early on -quarantine!

What virus infections did you work on? I work on immune responses to bug (and now parasite) mucosal infections.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Starchild
So this thing is more deadly than the Spanish flu. loooooovely.

But it is a lot less infectious than a normal flu. So stop panicking.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DanS
Luckily, the CDC likely will have an antibody detector to isolate real cases of the disease.

Aren't they a bit slow? We already have two tests in place, one based on DNA, the other on antibody.

[lightblue]

I worked on Varicella Zoster and Kaposi's Sarcoma Associated Herpesviruses. They are radically different from the kind of RNA virus that this is, and as such I can't judge the immune responses too well.

As far as I have been able to make out they do not yet know what this virus actually is. This suggests to me that it is not a influenza variant, as even with drastic recombination there should be enough of a similarity to rapidly identify if it was influenza by PCR or something similar. My personal, and mostly uneducated guess as I haven't seen too many details, is that it is a virus that has jumped across species. But why in Hong Kong? Lifestock should not be the species these things originate from, they usually come from isolated animal populations that have seen little to no human contact (which is how Ebola and HIV probably originated).

Hong Kong would make sense for influenza variants due to the density of pigs and chickens/ducks.

[Urban Ranger]

It's a corona virus, if that means anything to you.

[lightblue]

Yep did some more reading (must read befor post...). Corona viruses are one of many families of viruses that cause the common cold. Small RNA virus, highly mutable, has a number of RNA pseudoknots in it. But that's about it

[DanS]

And I just moved so I don't have Internet access!

Dewd. You're screwed. Now you're just going to be talking with friends and family.

[Urban Ranger]

They pinpointed the source for the local outbreak as a visiting professor from the PRC. He went to Hong Kong on 04/02 and died on the 6th. In the hotel he lived a number of people contracted the disease (including a couple of people who went back to Toronto). One of the people there got sick and was sent to the Prince of Wales hospital, which turned out to be the first "epicentre," so to speak.

[DaShi]

Thanks for the recap.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

But it is a lot less infectious than a normal flu. So stop panicking.

How would you know that? Given that the Chinese are probably hiding the extent of the disease (as they definitely do for HIV).

I agree there is no need to panic, but I havent seen any data to support any estimates of infectivity compared to human coronaviruses (which cause the cold not the flu).

Aren't they a bit slow? We already have two tests in place, one based on DNA, the other on antibody.

Two tests for what, human coronavirus? The etiological agent of SARS has not been positively identified. What about the metapneumo (paramyxovirus) virus that the Canadians have identified with SARS patients? In any case, a DNA-based or ELISA-based test that detects human virus may not necessarily detect a similar virus that has jumped from animals to humans.

[DanS]

Regarding infectivity, can anything interesting be said, based on the belief that it is similar to viruses causing the common cold?