Sarossa Share Discussion Threads

[freeme] 17/5/2003 23:29

To Twu Shiing-jer -It is good to know that there are still honourable men in politics.

[freeme] 17/5/2003 23:19

Reply to Khabas

Put a grain of rice on the first square of a chess board.Every time you move
a square double the amount of rice you lay down.



The first square represents one SARS carrier.After 6-7 days(average incubation period)his sneezes have infected two others.In square 2 the two SARS carriers
infect two more each after 6-7 days.In square 3 four SARS carriers.......
Obviously this is hypothetical and assumes no action is taken by the authorities or individuals.

If my paper maths is inaccurate I apologise.

The figures suggest that after 8 months around 2 billion people would have been infected.
After 9 months the figure is 32 billion

15%+ will have died.

N.B. One Chinese professor infected four people in a lift .


P.S.
The world population is just over 6 billion

[freeme] 17/5/2003 15:33

guro11

To answer your question in another way.

What sane government would encourage HIV positive nurses to work in the N.H.S?

Never mind the immorality of poaching staff from Third World countries.

Slack is one description one might use.

[freeme] 17/5/2003 15:27

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Advice on Japan

....You should be aware of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in East and South East Asia. A FEW PROBABLE CASES have been reported in Japan, although there have been no confirmed cases....

..............................................................

Rather like the UK then. Funny,I don't remember any TV pictures of offices, airports etc being disinfected in this country.

[guro11] 17/5/2003 15:26

To date 17/5/2003 there are around 4,000 confirmed cases with 227 deaths.
It is a bit more than flu. If one is over 60 one has a 40 death rate, compared to a 13% death rate for the under 60's. The main areas are Hong Kong and Beijing, and Tiawan. It is being taken very seriously in China. To board an airplane or book in an hotel they will give you a mandatory temperature check.
Apparently the main risk of catching it is if one is in contact with someone who has SARS and has a temperature. There is less chance early on. There is more chance in crowded places. It obviously does need to be contained and done away with altogether, otherwise it could grow out of all proportions, but at present there is a lid being kept on it.

One should ask if anyone who wants to stay in the UK for more than a set period of time should they not be given a mandatory HIV blood test, to avoid causing the tax payer - you and I - spending more money out of the Health Service?
It happens in Israel I believe. Is the UK too slack?

CH

[freeme] 17/5/2003 13:19

See- WORLD GETS THE MEASURE OF AIDS -New Scientist 17 May 2003

...It turns out that the body's immune response is to blame for SARS deaths,as it is in some other diseases.
Ten days after the illness starts,antibody levels shoot up and levels of the coronavarius plummet,Malik Peiris of Hong Kong University has found.
The damage also starts showing up in the lungs.

This suggests that the damage is caused by a overstimulated immune system rather than uncontrolled replication of the virus itself,Peiris team concludes in the Lancet,online edition.They say that early in the disease,doctors should focus on stopping the virus replicating,while later on the immune system should be dampened down,perhaps with the body's own specific immune inhibitors.
DOCTORS IN HONG KONG HAVE STOPPED GIVING IMUNOSUPPRESSANT STEROIDS EARLY ON.

Several potential treatments emerged this week,.David Ho of the Aaron Diamonds Aids research centre in New York announced that the drug enfluritide(Furzeon)
,which stops HIV entering immune cells, also keeps out the SARS virus, which might stop it replicating.And a modified treatment of an experimental anti-cold
treatment might inhibit a protein cleaving enzyme essential for SARS to replicate,according to Kanchan Anand at the University of Lubeck,Germany.

Better treatments are certainly needed to cut the death rate,which is far higher than orginally thought:up to 18% in Hong Kong acoording to Christ Doneely ofImperia;l College London..........

.....children with SARS in Hong Kong dfid not die,Peris reportsand didn't have chills and aches characteristic of a "cytokine storm",the kind of immune response that kills adults......


....................................
Question-should schools be closed in infected areas-ie because children are least affected by their condition and the infections may be easily overlooked?

[freeme] 17/5/2003 12:20

Avoint

If you look back through SARS-No Man is an Island ,you can find a WHO article which details the extent of HIV infection in Africa.It makes chilling reading.You are absolutely correct, unfortunately. If SARS takes hold in Africa, where health care systems are often over stretched/non existent, a permanent reservoir for the virus will be created. Travel to and from the continent will then regularly transmit the virus to the rest of the world.

Hopefully an equivalent to the cheap salt/sugar treatment for diahorea will be developed for use in 'Third World 'countries. ie We may ,if containment fails,and vaccines prove to be less effective than hoped,have to learn to live with SARS and reduce the fatality rate via more effective treatments.

Given the above scenario,it seems fairly probable that a significant proportion of the global population will have been wiped out.Unless,pray God,it does mutate back into a more benign form.Let us hope that we can keep the virus under control for long enough for the worlds scientists to provide a vaccine/cure.

[avoint] 16/5/2003 23:56

Yep OK but what hapens if it hits Africa ! The there will be a total epidemic on the worlds hands.

[freeme] 16/5/2003 19:15

DAILY MAIL 16 MAY

....Eight people had been classed as probable SARS cases, BUT DEFINITIVE BLOOD TESTING FOR THE VIRUS CAN BE ACHIEVED ONLY THREE TO FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE DEVELOPMENT OF SYMPTOMS........




So for practical containment purposes PROBABLE SARS CASE = PROVEN SARS CASE =
STRICT CONTAINMENT STRATEGY REQUIRED. eg.(bare minimum)

a) Students prohibited from leaving a particular hall of
residence?

b) Disinfection of particular University facilities eg phone
kiosks outside of the quarantine zone, main lecture hall.

c) Intense local publicity warning residents to be on
the look out for SARS symptoms, particularly if they have
had direct contact with students from the particular hall.


N.B.Leicester University had a message on it's website two days ago, which denied rumours that a student/member of staff had contracted SARS.


Perhaps the authorities will put our minds at rest.

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS!

ARE ANY OF THE THREE SUSPECTED SARS PATIENTS ATTENDING A UK UNIVERSITY?
IF YES HAS THE STUDENT BODY BEEN PLACED IN QUARANTINE?
WHICH CITIES DID THE THREE PROBABLE SARS PATIENTS RESIDE IN?
HAVE THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES BEEN INFORMED?
IF THEY WORKED IN THE U.K. HAVE THEIR WORKMATES BEEN QUARANTINED?
IF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PLACED IN QUARANTINE WHY HAS THERE BEEN NO PRESS RELEASE?
IF NO QUARANTINE RESTRICTIONS ARE OPERATING WHO IS GOING TO RESIGN?



DO THE THREE SUSPECTED SARS PATIENTS REPRESENT A CLUSTER?

[dontknowitall] 16/5/2003 08:15

First SARS case in this country.

1. Create a 3 mile total exclusion zone.

2. Install a passport system to prevent movement of people into or out of the area.

3. Create health inspection points.

4. Shoot every human living on a housing estate within 3 miles of the outbreak whether infected or not.

5. Build human pyres and have mass burnings.

6. Finally, when all completed and another year of tax revenues have been collected, give the sheep some compensation, say around £3m per housing estate.


Return some common sense to this country - we need it.

[crystalclear] 16/5/2003 01:31

Another case of taking immunity (antibodies present) as proof of illness.
What a load of amateurs.

[freeme] 15/5/2003 22:35

UK has first confirmed SARS case
Thursday, May 15, 2003 Posted: 1822 GMT ( 2:22 AM HKT)


LONDON, England (CNN) -- Government health authorities Thursday reported the first confirmed case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in the United Kingdom.

Laboratory testing "provided a positive result for the SARS coronavirus on one existing probable SARS case," the Health Protection Agency said in a written statement.


Since reporting began in March, eight people in Britain have been classified as probable SARS cases.

Four individuals' symptoms were found to have been caused by something other than SARS, said Maria Zambon, head of the Health Protection Agency's respiratory virus unit.

"Of our remaining four probable cases, we have completed our coronavirus antibody response testing on two and found one to be positive and one negative," she said. Coronavirus is the pathogen that the WHO has identified as the cause of the illness, which has no known treatment.

"Although one case has been found to be negative, WHO definitions require such cases to remain in the probable category. This leaves us with three probable cases and one confirmed case of SARS in the UK," Zambon said.

All of those with probable cases have been discharged from hospital and there is no evidence of onward transmission to any of their close contacts.

To date, 159 suspected cases of SARS in the UK have been reported to the HPA's Communicable Disease Surveillance Center.

.....................................................................................................................
WHEN WERE THEY DISCHARGED?
HAS THE HPA PROVED THAT SARS HAS NOT BEEN TRANSMITTED TO STRANGERS WHO SHARED A TELEPHONE KIOSK , TAXI, LIFT ETC ?
HOW MANY CASES HAVE NOT YET BEEN CLASSIFIED?

[crystalclear] 15/5/2003 21:12

freeme
It will be like when the nuclear reactor in France was overheating: the first public press announcement was that there had been a problem which was now under control. It occurred when they had their big storms and all the power lines fell. With nowhere for the electricity to go, they lost a source of cooling which just was not in their plans. To prevent public panic in the area, they didn't tell anybody until the lines were restored long enough for the reactor to cool down again.

[freeme] 15/5/2003 19:49

SARS cases in the United Kingdom

The number of current 'probable' cases of SARS (see Case definitions and follow-up procedures of cases and contacts for case definition) reported to the Health Protection Agency Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre on 12 May 2003 has fallen to four. All cases have recovered. OTHER INDIVIDUALS ARE UNDERGOING ASSESSMENT. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF LOCAL TRANSMISSION. Although the UK has been placed on the list of Affected Areas by The World Health Organization (WHO) a note has been added in which the UK has been assigned as an area with limited local transmission and no evidence of international spread from area since 15 March 2003 and no transmission other than close person-to-person contact reported. No travel restrictions therefore apply to people travelling into or out of the UK.

Number of cases England Wales Scotland Northern Ireland UK total
4 – – – 4

One probable case was declassified and removed on 29/04/03 following a diagnosis of influenza. A PREVIOUS REPORT, WITH AN ONSET DATE OF 1/03/03, HAS BEEN REVIEWED AND RETROSPECTIVELY CLASSIFIED AS A 'PROBABLE ' CASE. One probable case has been declassified following a diagnosis of influenza A (H3N2). This strain of influenza is common world-wide and is covered by the current season's flu vaccine. The other probable case has been declassified following a diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a common bacterial cause of pneumonia.

Updated 17:00 BST 12 May 2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT LOCAL TRANSMISSION HAS NOT OCCURRED
HOW MANY OTHER INDIVIDUALS ARE UNDERGOING ASSESSMENT?

[avoint] 15/5/2003 19:05

First case in UK confirmed