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SARS 2013 latest - 6th victim has died in UK!

Rogue Trader

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Victim of new SARS-like virus dies in Great Britain
HEALTH
FEBRUARY 19, 2013
BY: TONI HAYES

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A new, SARS-like virus has claimed its sixth victim. A patient being treated for the virus at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England died Tues. Feb. 19, according to a hospital spokesperson. Twelve cases of the virus have been confirmed worldwide.

The new virus is classified as a coronavirus, the same virus responsible for the common cold and SARS. It was first identified in theMiddle East in 2012. Most of the original cases were in people who lived in or had visited Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan. The latest victim in Great Britain had not visited the Middle East; it is believed he caught the virus from a relative. There have been four confirmed cases in Great Britain.

Experts are unsure how the virus is spread. The new coronavirus is closely related to a virus found in bats, and scientists are speculating that the virus may spread by bats, or possibly by other animals such as goats or camels.

The World Health Organization (WHO), at www.who.int, said it appears the virus can spread between people under the right circumstances. During the original outbreak in 2012, four members of a Saudi Arabia family became infected, and two died. A cluster of cases also occurred in a hospital in Jordan, possibly originating in the hospital’s intensive care unit. Britain’s Health Protection Agency has said they consider the risk of infection from person-to-person to be low. The most recent victim was also being treated for a long-term unrelated health condition and had a compromised immune system, according to www.nbcnews.com.

WHO recommends testing for the novel coronavirus in any cases of unexplained pneumonia or prolonged respiratory infections. The organization is not recommending any travel or trade restrictions at this time. No special screening has been instituted although the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that travelers to the Arab peninsula monitor their health and see a doctor right away if they develop symptoms of a respiratory infection. Health officials in the U.S. have expressed concern that the virus could be brought into the United States with military troops returning from tours of duty in the Middle East.
 

Sinkie

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I can safely say that the deaths in UK are not Caucasians but middle-eastern or pakistani.

Cos the coronavirus is lab manufactured.

Just saying UK is trying to put us on a red herring, as we tend to think it is referring to a "white man" country.
 

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Could a deadly virus wipe out earth?
'A pandemic virus only needs to win once and it may be the end of mankind',
says Professor John Oxford, viral expert at the Universtity of London


KHALID HUSSAIN became the first Brit to die of a SARS-type virus this week.

Khalid, 38, died in a Birmingham hospital after becoming infected through his father, who had been on a trip to Mecca.

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Virus death ... Sun report

After seeing swine flu and bird flu take countless lives around the world, is it possible that coronavirus could become a pandemic and wipe out thousands of lives – like the one in Matt Damon film Contagion?

Leading virologist Professor John Oxford, from the University of London, says such an outbreak may not be as unlikely as we think.

THE symptoms of the new SARS-like coronavirus are a serious cough, a shortness of breath and a rise in temperature.
Unfortunately, this sounds like the average common cold.

It’s the bit that follows that gets worrying — breathing becomes a struggle and your lips start going blue.

In hospital, they’ll ask you if you’ve been on holiday recently. If the answer is Tenerife, they’ll send you back home.

But if you’ve come back from the Middle East, they will begin looking at you differently.

They’ll start by donning face masks and white gowns. Throat samples will be taken and sent to a high-security laboratory.

Your body will start to get floppy as your lungs struggle to get oxygen.

You’ll find yourself being stretchered down the corridor or transferred by ambulance in a plastic anti-infection bubble to a hospital specialising in intensive care for people with respiratory infections.

If you’re lucky, your body will stay calm and your immune system will kill the virus. You’ll have defeated the coronavirus.

But if your immune system overreacts to the virus, you’ll find yourself teetering between life and death.

Fluid will build up in your lung tissue, making breathing even more difficult.

You’ll be put on a life-support machine and given a 50/50 chance of recovery.

Unfortunately for you, antibiotics will not touch the virus and there are no antiviral drugs.

Six people have died such a death so far, worldwide. The first patient to die in Britain passed away on Sunday night at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and the Health Protection Agency is now on full alert.

Doctors in accident and emergency departments have been briefed to take extra samples if a patient has visited Pakistan or the Middle East.

Britain’s public-health laboratories have been working round the clock to get a genetic fingerprint of the virus.

Meanwhile, scientists at Rotterdam University in Holland are looking at swabs taken at the start of the outbreak eight months ago.

They are keen to see if the virus has a common source or if it is a nasty conglomeration of several viruses from this family.

The worst-case scenario is that the virus adapts itself so that it is able to spread more easily from person to person.

The best-case scenario is that we have a virus that struggles to leap from person to person — and can only do so within families.

So far, it appears to be the latter.

The virus had a chance to go global after Christmas when four million pilgrims went to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the Haj religious pilgrimage.

There was no mass outbreak. But the virus does appear to be airborne — meaning that it can be carried by droplets from your mouth.

In a family setting, this means that kissing, sharing towels, sneezing and coughing without putting your hand up are all high-risk behaviours.

In a city context this could mean that close contact on packed Tube trains could help the virus to thrive.

The worry is that the more people get infected, the higher the chance that it could mutate.

But the good news is that viruses are not notorious for mutating. With more attention to hygiene, the chances are the spread of this virus will be halted.

Will there ever be an infectious disease that could wipe out the human population? It’s possible.


I do think it’s inevitable that we’ll have a global outbreak of flu sometime around 2017-18, if historical cycles are anything to go by. Vigilant surveillance is the only real answer that we have.


New flu strains are a day-to-day problem and we have to be careful to keep on top of them.

We now have scientific processes enabling us to quickly identify the genome — the total genetic content — of the virus behind a new illness, so that we know what we are dealing with.

The best we can do after that is to develop and stockpile vaccines and antiviral drugs that can fight new strains that we see emerging.

I’m worried our politicians are not taking this certainty of mass death seriously enough.

Such laxity could come at a human cost so unprecedentedly high that it would amount to criminal negligence.

The race against newly-emerging, animal-derived diseases is one we must win every time.

A pandemic virus needs to win only once and it could be the end of humankind.



 

imagery

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I can safely say that the deaths in UK are not Caucasians but middle-eastern or pakistani.

Cos the coronavirus is lab manufactured.

Just saying UK is trying to put us on a red herring, as we tend to think it is referring to a "white man" country.

It would be scary if the white man could tweak certain characteristics of the virus so that it would affect only the other races .
 

Rogue Trader

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A CNN journalist remembers HK 2003 ...

Hong Kong and SARS: A city under siege


By Kevin Voigt, CNN
February 21, 2013 -- Updated 1056 GMT (1856 HKT)


Hong Kong (CNN) -- The death of a sixth patient from a SARS-like virus comes on the week that marks 10 years since the deadly outbreak hit Hong Kong.

Reports of the new virus' spread remind me of a phone call I received a decade ago: "Kevin, we're hearing that there might be a case of SARS on Lamma," said my boss, referring to the tiny island off Hong Kong where I live.

Back then I was working for The Wall Street Journal Asia, and my colleagues and I had been reporting on the outbreak for weeks from our homes. Like many businesses at the height of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, employees were encouraged to stay away from the office, or any other places where large numbers of people gather.


Still, I remember thinking: What do I do with this information? How do I defend against what is unknown and unseen? And is the sniffle I have more than just a runny nose?

When the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its global alert on March 12, 2003 -- an ominous warning of a "world-wide health threat" due the outbreak of an unknown form of severe pneumonia -- Hong Kong became a city under siege.

Those of us living in the city in the months following that alert watched as the disease spread daily, growing from 150 confirmed cases in 10 nations to 8,096 cases in 30 nations -- killing 774 people -- by July, according to WHO.

Hospitals were overrun, an apartment complex was quarantined, and restaurants and bars in one of the most crowded cities in the world were deserted.

The disease decimated social conventions: A public service announcement suggested Japanese-like bows rather than handshakes at business meetings; signs offered instruction on how to wash hands and proper spitting etiquette. Money changing hands suddenly took on a new scrutiny. Catholic priests were forbidden from offering sacramental wine and placing communion wafers in the mouths of the faithful.

Many in this city of seven million turned to wearing masks, a prophylactic against panic yet an unnerving reminder of the life-and-death fights in the city's medical centers.

We now know SARS started in November 2002 across the border in mainland China's Guangdong Province, percolating there until 10 years ago today.

On February 21, 2003, a Chinese doctor who treated patients with atypical pneumonia in Guangdong province in China checked into Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel to attend a wedding. The next day, the doctor was admitted to a Hong Kong hospital for respiratory failure. Disease detectives say SARS then spread to other travelers at the hotel, who then hopped on jumbo jets and spread the illness around the world.

But that is hindsight. At the time, more was unknown than known, which ratcheted fears.

Statistics offered comfort: The numbers were relatively small, we told ourselves, and noted that tens of thousands of people die each year of pneumonia in the U.S. alone. But our emotional lives aren't lived in a realm of statistical truth, as the casino and lottery industries can attest. You can tell yourself the odds are far against infection, and farther still against death, and yet -- what's that tickle in my throat?

Fear was driven by the novelty of the disease. Epidemiologists had a number of false starts on the origin of the disease -- It's chlammydia penuemoniae; no, it's a paramyxovirus -- until it was revealed to be a new strain of coronavirus, the same family of disease as the common cold. This did little to salve public nerves, because who hasn't come down with a cold?

One day during the height of the outbreak I went to a movie with a friend, and I choked on my drink. As I coughed uncontrollably, a couple sitting behind us -- the only other people in the theater --got up and left.

The economic and political backdrop of the disease didn't help. The WHO announcement came just days before the 2003 Iraq War began. The September 11 terrorist attacks were still fresh in the public psyche, and before the disease was identified many serious questions were being asked whether it was bioterrorist attack. Hong Kong was already dealing with record high employment, which SARS further raised to an unprecedented 8.6% by June.

"It's a general emotional backdrop; life is not safe, the world is not safe, even the ground under my feet I can't count on," a local counselor told me at the time. "People are very, very tired and very insecure."

"It's a general emotional backdrop; life is not safe, the world is not safe, even the ground under my feet I can't count on" - Hong Kong counselor during the SARS outbreak


Rumors spread faster than the disease. The suspected outbreak on my island proved false. After the outbreak at Amoy Gardens, an apartment complex where 329 people were infected and 42 killed, city officials went into overdrive to stop a rumor going viral on the internet that entire city was poised to be quarantined. A 14-year-old boy was later arrested for creating a fake news page creating the story.

Most of the sick and dying were city medical professionals -- which made sense, considering they were the ones at the frontline treating the illness -- but that only added to our worries: If doctors and nurses can't protect themselves, how can we?

The cost to business was high. Conventions shut down, tourists stayed away. A friend of mine nearly lost his consulting business as he paid office rental space and salaries for three people with no income for three months as clients canceled training sessions. The Asian Develop Bank estimated SARS cost East and Southeast Asian economies $60 billion in lost demand and business revenue.

But as the months passed, so did the malady. You could see the green sprouts of recovery in the early weeks as people turned masks into fashion statements, embroidering surgical masks with sequins; other entrepreneurs started selling masks with Hello Kitty or other cartoon characters.

On July 1, 2003, half a million of the city's residents took to the streets on the sixth anniversary of the handover of the former British colony to China. Ostensibly, the protests were against a controversial new security measure, but the outpouring of support was fueled by frustrations with public officials over SARS.

The city's property market was leveled by fallout from the disease, but anyone who lived in Hong Kong at the time (this author included) is now kicking themselves for not purchasing an apartment during SARS -- the city's property is now among the most expensive in the world.

In retrospect, it can be argued that the paranoia of the first few months paid off: SARS was identified and stopped with unprecedented speed.

"It was rapidly contained within less than four months of the initial alert, as a result of an unprecedented level of international cooperation designed to prevent it from becoming established in people, as HIV/AIDS had done during the 20th century," Professor David L. Heymann, head of the Centre on Global Health Security at UK think tank Chatham House, recently wrote.
Still others argue lessons from SARS remain unlearned. "Once the initial dilly-dallying gave way to decisive and swift state action, resources were effectively mobilized against the epidemic and policy coordination was significantly improved," Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow on global health for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote earlier this month.

"Yet many of the measures widely credited for stopping the spread of the virus, such as isolation and quarantine, were only implemented after the virus" had dissipated, he said.

The cases of a new SARS-like virus hitting a handful of people in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UK serves as reminder of the strange days that we in Hong Kong lived through a decade ago, and the hope that early detection of these cases will prevent other cities from living through a similar siege.



 

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SARS 10 years on: Is travel industry prepared for next epidemic?
By Ramy Inocencio, for CNN
February 21, 2013 -- Updated 1012 GMT (1812 HKT)


Hong Kong (CNN) -- In the 2011 suspense movie "Contagion," Gwyneth Paltrow's globe-trotting character dies from a virus that stirred up our memories -- and fears -- of SARS, the respiratory epidemic from China that killed several hundred people around the world in 2003.

Paltrow played Patient Zero, a woman who travels through Hong Kong -- where we were treated to scenes of Kowloon, by some accounts the densest concentration of human life on the planet -- from where she boards a plane and subsequently spreads the deadly virus around the world.


While the movie was fiction, SARS was very real. It made us feel nervous, vulnerable and afraid.


But it also made us learn.


Exactly one decade after SARS hit, is the travel world ready if a similar epidemic -- a SARS 2.0 -- were to break out?

Experts in the aviation, hotel and health industries agree we're now much better prepared than before to deal with such a potential calamity.

But some still prefer to avoid publicly addressing the issue.

Here are five of the most important lessons we've learned about handling global epidemics, ten years on.

1. SARS helped the world realize we needed a global plan


"The most important change has been the adoption of the International Health Regulations in 2005," says Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, World Health Organization Director for the Global Capacities Alert and Response Department in Geneva, Switzerland.

The IHR
, as Nuttall describes, is basically one massive global plan that maps an emergency response effort if a health emergency -- such as SARS -- strikes. At present, 194 states and territories have signed the legally binding agreement.
Ten years ago, a plan like this simply didn't exist.

"During SARS everything had to be invented," says Nuttall. "It was the first time we were dealing with such a disease, such an international threat. We had to mount new networks of clinicians and laboratories."

And there was no obligation to report anything quickly -- as the world learned from a secretive China in April 2003.

On one Saturday that month, health authorities in Beijing claimed just 37 confirmed SARS cases existed in the capital. One day later,Beijing revealed 346 confirmed cases with another 402 suspected.

The international community condemned China for withholding vital information.

Ten years later, the IHR now gives the World Health Organization "probing powers" into any signatory country to check in and make sure everything is okay. Countries are legally bound to report all they know.

2. SARS helped us be more alert with technology and training

While NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command, tracks airspace over the United States and Canada for potential threats, the World Health Organization boasts its own global watch system for brewing health crises.

Like a global plan, the capability for high-tech tracking also didn't exist ten years ago.

"We now have a system that is constantly screening the web 24/7 for information and rumors," says the WHO's Nuttal. "We analyze them -- and some turn out to be false. However, every single piece of information is touching our attention and bringing the information to a team of people."

While the World Health Organization has an army of 8,000 health and safety officials, the Kowloon Shangri-La in Hong Kong has an 800-person trained team of employees that both welcome and watch hotel guests.

"We always want to be alert, but we certainly don't want to be alarming," says Linda Wan, resident manager at the Kowloon Shangri-La.

The 20-year industry veteran, who moved from the United States to Hong Kong last year, has an old 2003 emergency SARS manual sitting on her desk. That has evolved into a general emergency response manual that the Shangri-La uses to train staff.

Employees are taught to sanitize public areas -- elevator buttons, escalator rails, door knobs and restroom doors -- every hour or based on foot traffic frequency.

In guest rooms, housekeeping disinfects frequently touched items with special focus on remote controls, light switches and bathrooms.

"If a guest is ill we may refer them to a nearby clinic and notify proper authorities of any heightened concern," says Wan.

Even before hotel guests check in, thermal imaging technology at major airports serves as an earlier field of defense against visitors arriving with a fever.

The closer your image is to the red side of the visible light spectrum, the warmer you are. Too warm and you get a visit to the quarantine room for questioning and a potential sick bed.

3. SARS taught us to appreciate breathing in deeply


You board your plane, amble down the aisle, spot your seat and then ... mentally cringe: your red-nosed neighbor for the next several hours is coughing and sneezing into already-moist tissues.

If air purity is a factor in which airplane you fly, the Boeing Dreamliner (battery problems notwithstanding) is best, according to Tom Ballantyne, the Sydney-based chief correspondent for Orient Aviation.

The two-decade aviation expert says the Dreamliner's technologically advanced systems mean its air is the best-filtered in the skies.

Another benefit of the state of the art system is a difference in cabin pressure. While other airplanes are pressurized at about 8,000 feet in altitude, the new Dreamliners are pressurized at 5,000 feet, "so it's a much more pleasant atmosphere."

Higher humidity levels also keep that dry cottonmouth feeling at bay.

The newer Boeing 777's and the latest versions of the Airbus A350 and A320 Neo also have well filtered air, adds Ballantyne.

"As newer models come out, their internal air purification systems are more advanced."

But the 747-400 sits on the opposite end of the clean air spectrum because it's "a relatively elderly aircraft" that's been in operation for nearly three decades, says Ballantyne.

While Singapore Airlines retired its last 747 passenger jet in April 2012, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific still has 18 in its fleet,United Continental operates 23 and British Airways boasts to be "the world's largest operator of the Boeing 747-400" -- with 57 aircraft.

4. SARS taught airlines to be financially more resilient

Between 2001 and 2005, an average of more than one major U.S. airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection each year: TWA(2001), US Airways (2002) , United Airlines (2002) , US Airwaysagain (2004) and both Northwest Airlines (2005) and Delta (2005)on the same day in a coincidence in timing.

But from 2006 onward, just one major U.S. airline filed for bankruptcy protection -- American Airlines in 2011.

The reason is that catastrophic events, such as 9/11 and SARS, taught airlines an important lesson.

When people stopped flying, "airlines recognized the thing that gets them into real trouble is running out of cash," says Paul Sheridan, head of consultancy Asia at Hong Kong-based Ascend. Airlines learned to "make sure they have enough cash flow" to weather turbulent times.

"Over the last five years, we've seen oil prices hit 150 bucks a barrel, swine flu and a volcanic ash cloud" that all impacted air passenger numbers, says Sheridan.

"The industry has had plenty of practice and (now keeps) more cash on hand. It's a pretty wide range for liquidity, but perhaps it's 10 percent of revenue, maybe a bit higher."

If it hadn't been for 9/11 and SARS, "a lot of airlines would have been bankrupt now if you threw the same issues over the last five years at them."

5. SARS -- and other big, bad diseases -
- still scare us

Sometimes what we learn isn't through what is said, but through what is not.

Although SARS occurred a decade ago, an inordinate number of people and businesses declined comment for this article -- including all four international airports in the SARS hub cities of Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore and Toronto.

"The responsible person has a very full schedule recently -- sorry," texted Hong Kong Airport Authority spokeswoman Chris Lam.

"This is something that we'd rather not revisit at this point in time," e-mailed Robin Goh, assistant vice president of corporate communications at Singapore's Changi Airport Group.

Beijing Capital Airport authorities told CNN it would take "several days to look at an application" for an interview after having been closed the entire week prior for Chinese New Year.

Toronto Pearson never replied to e-mailed interview requests.

"I don't know why (they would not talk) to tell you the truth," said Ballantyne of Orient Aviation. "I could understand the trouble with Beijing and bureaucracy, but I would have expected Singapore and Hong Kong to be willing to talk about it. You fly to Singapore and you can still see the signs and huge thermal imaging cameras. I'd be happy to say 'We've got these things.'"

In the hotel industry, similar caution appeared to exist.

Hong Kong's Kowloon Metropark (formerly the Metropole), the Hong Kong hotel that had the first reported SARS case in the city, declined an interview request.

"I'm sorry we do not want to put out any comments on the SARS issue because we want to look forward," said Anita Kwan, public relations manager at the Metropark Hotel in Kowloon. "I have spoken to the boss."

The Hong Kong Four Seasons, arguably the city's top hotel, also declined to discuss any precautions and response procedures it had in place.

"Feburary is our peak season and we are too busy to arrange any interview at this moment," said Angela Wong, the Four Seasons public relations manager.

And international airlines including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Emirates Airlines all either stopped communicating, only released statements or declined interview requests through their public relations agency.

The lessons learned 10 years later? We have a global response plan and advanced technology for disease tracking. And we have better training for hygiene and healthier airline financial strategies.

Yet while we're much better prepared, SARS still scares us ... sometimes into silence.


 

lianbeng

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lianbeng noted the SARS virus has mutated into a stronger strain packing more deadly punches no holds bar!:biggrin: just like MRSA, the antibiotic resistant bacteria that overpowers the high-power Methycillin, this new strain also bullet proof one! cheng jee par buay jip ah!
 
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