This SARS stuff may take the war out of the headlines. Both the Centers for Disease Control and The World Health Organization have said there is no drug or treatment that has any effect on SARS, and the WHO has proposed a worlwide ban on air travel as the only possible way to stop the spread of SARS. SARS was originally detected in Hanoi with patient #0 being an american business man who flew into Hanoi from China. Since then, SARS has spread all over the far east, with a death toll of 56 and at least 1550 known cases of infection. Here is a report about how it's affecting Singapore... Rohit Bansal SINGAPORE: For Noor Mohammed, this has been a really bad week. His cab, rented from taxi operator Tibs, gave him barely 50 per cent of what it should. And things are only getting worse. This weekend, as he sat parked around the Royal Plaza On Scotts, dozens of potential customers gave him a go by. Some opted for the joys of Singapore’s bus service. Some re-discovered the MRTS. Others simply walked. Noor Mohammed isn’t the unluckiest cabbie in town. Those going back and forth the Changi International Airport are doing much worse. The problem is simple enough. On Wednesday, designer Chong Pei Ling, 29, got down from a China Southern Airline aircraft after two weeks in Beijing and got past immigration. No one saw any signs of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). She hailed a cab and got on with her life. By Friday, she developed acute symptoms, including fever and cough. For a country that has already quarantined Hong Kong, Vietnam and southern provinces of China this was an “index case,” the fourth since the bug spread across East Asia taking 55 lives. Singapore flashed the red alert. For a nation obsessed with its image of safety, SARS is a bigger scare than 9/11. Newspapers and TV stations aren’t leading with Saddam and Bush. Food can be had at restaurants at 20 per cent discount with no charge for service. New Zealand and Indonesia have issued travel advisories against Singapore which is used to receiving 1080 flights a week from Indonesia (260), Malaysia (220), Thailand (190), Australia (120), China (120) Japan (100), India (73). Not surprisingly, there’s a mad scramble to find the cabbie who drove Chong Pei Ling. But he has refused to own up because he may not want to be quarantined and lose his payment to the taxi rental. Therefore all three taxi rentals in Singapore have issued statements assuring him of financial help. The government got down to tracking each person on Chong Pei Ling’s flight who touched down at Singapore. Thirty were found and have been ordered to stay home under the country’s quarantine law. The nine Chinese crew operating the flight have been laid off for 10 days. Other passengers remain at large. They may never be tracked down. Simply because Chinese tourists typically stay in Singapore for just 2-3 days. Walking past immigration last weekend, there were no visible signs of extra precautions. No doctors in white coats checking for breathing irregularity and that sort of thing. But their fear is palpable. This afternoon, as someone cleared her throat and narrated how a co-passenger coughed on her flight last night, the antenna of a senior bureaucrat in the ministry of information, culture and the arts — Nooraini Hamzah - went up swiftly. “If you have any problem let me know immediately,” she said, her smile freezing and worry showing. Indeed, the joke is that the best way to stay for free in Singapore is to walk into a police station and say you’ve had casual contact with someone with SARS symptoms. You’d be quarantined immediately and the state would foot the bill. What does all this translate to on the ground? “Apprehension, for one,” says senior expat banker Akash Mohapatra, referring to contingency plans being put in place by several transnational companies in Singapore, including invoking recovery sites, curbing travel and, in some cases, critical operational teams being divided across various buildings. Symptoms of the SARS bug include fever (above 38 degrees celcius), cough, or breathing difficulty. The 55 people SARS has killed includes the Italian doctor – Carlo Urbani — who was the first to identify the outbreak. Urbani, 46, a World Health Organisation medico, died in Thailand on Saturday. He was being treated after being infected in Vietnam.
Think about 1 person in the 'coalition' force in the middle east contracting SARS. Peace might break out!
ranger, that's ONE sick thought, buddy. but it doesn't surprise me that you feel that way. our troops need our respect, and if you can't say something good about them, then you should keep your big trap shut.
Men are more powerful huh? Ok, then I'll say it... Ranger that is one FUCKIN SICK THOUGHT!! To wish SARS on our troops is about as low as anything I can think of, I wouldn't even wish it on Sadaam. Is that powerful enough for you Bonez? Oh and BTW Bonez, man to man, I find what Mary says to be much more "powerful" than any of the bullshit you've come up with so far.
What would happen if this virus got really aweioua and kept spreading and killing more and more peeps how would that affect the war?
Well Marty, in 1918 troops in the trenches got sick and couldn't fight for weeks. Of course the 1918 pandemic killed more people than all the soldiers, sailors and civilians that were killed in the war, in fact the 1918 bug killed 40 million people world wide, then mutated it's self out of existance. This will probably be worse.
Early reports say that SARS (Severe accute resperatory syndrome) is a mutation of the Flu. Deaths have been fairly limited to those who are elderly, have ongoing and previous resperatory issues or weak immune systems. Some children and babys now have contracted the disease. If they survive, as they are expected to they will have the antigens that scientists are looking for...we hope. Death tolls have remained extremely low, if this was as bad as the plague was thousands would have been dead by now. Virtua:
Here's the latest report from Hong Kong, via the WHO web site... 31 March 2003 Situation in Hong Kong The Hong Kong Department of Health has today issued an unprecedented isolation order to prevent the further spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The isolation order requires residents of Block E of Amoy Garden to remain in their flats until midnight on 9 April. The decision to issue the isolation order was made following a continued steep rise in the number of SARS cases detected in the building over the past few days. Concern about a possible outbreak in Amoy Garden mounted on Saturday, when 22 of Hong Kong’s 45 new SAR cases hospitalized that day were determined to be residents of the estate. On Sunday, 36 of the 60 new patients admitted to hospital with probable SARS were Amoy Garden residents. Hong Kong health authorities today informed the public that a cumulative total of 213 residents of Amoy Garden had been admitted to hospital with suspected SARS since reporting on the disease began. Hong Kong’s outbreak began on 12 March when health officials first recognized a cluster of cases of atypical pneumonia in the Prince of Wales Hospital. Of the 213 Amoy residents affected in the outbreak, 107 patients resided in Block E. In addition, most of these 107 patients from Block E lived in flats that were vertically arranged. This suggests that SARS may be spreading in Hong Kong according to a different pattern, still involving close person-to-person contact with bodily secretions from an infected person. WHO epidemiologists are considering the possibility that bodily secretions containing the causative virus might somehow enter common systems that link rooms or flats together. This pattern of spread would be in addition to the well-documented face-to-face contact that has been seen in the majority of cases reported so far. Earlier this month, Hong Kong epidemiologists detected an unusual pattern of transmission among guests and visitors at the Metropole Hotel during the critical period of 15 to 23 February. Guests and visitors at a single floor of the hotel are thought to have spread SARS to Toronto and Singapore and to have started the outbreak in Hong Kong’s Prince of Wales Hospital. No staff at the hotel developed symptoms. Amoy Garden is a large housing estate consisting of ten 35-storey blocks, where around 15,000 persons reside. It is located in Kowloon District. WHO has been informed that environmental samples have been taken from the affected flats in Block E and that investigations are under way to determine a possible explanation for this apparent vertical spread of the disease. Although the investigation is complex, results from testing of the environmental samples should be available within days and will help determine the source of infection in Block E and the mechanisms by which the pathogen has spread. Hong Kong epidemiologists have identified a possible “index” case in the Amoy Garden outbreak. This is a patient, now hospitalized in Prince of Wales Hospital, who visited his brother, a resident of Block E, several times before hospital admission.
As far as "vertical transmission" in Amoy Gardens, my guess would be elevators. Someone coughs in an elevator full of people, etc.
That would be my guess as well, an elevator is the perfect place to spread something like this. But you know how it is with the UN, never say in one sentance what you could use a paragraph to say.
Did you all catch the news about the plane in San Jose that had a "possible SARS case" on it, the news footage I saw had the plane pulled off to a remote location at the airport and a bunch of guys in hazmat suits around it. The govt seems to be taking this very seriously.
Economist predicts world recession Morgan Stanley economist cites SARS, war uncertainties as the main causes for pending recession. April 2, 2003: 1:11 PM EST NEW YORK (CNN) - One of Wall Street's leading economists is predicting a global recession this year, prompted in large part by fears surrounding Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the "mystery illness" with cold-like symptoms that is blamed for 78 deaths in 15 countries, CNNfn has learned. Morgan Stanley's chief economist in the United States, Stephen Roach, will formally advise clients Friday that he's forecasting a world recession in 2003. His previous forecast was for an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent. Roach told CNNfn that SARS is "just another nail on the coffin for the world economy." And slower global growth, he said, will impact U.S. exports. "You've got war, SARS, uncertainty, and imbalances that will prevail after the war is over and until a cure for the disease is found," Roach said. Air Canada (ACNAF: Research, Estimates) blamed the disease for contributing to its financial plight as it filed for bankruptcy Tuesday. An airline spokeswoman said SARS had brought a reduction in flights between Canada and Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai. Of the 2,223 cases of SARS confirmed by the World Health Organization, 1,898 occurred in mainland China and Hong Kong. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday its scientists are 90 percent certain they have identified a new strain of virus that is responsible for SARS.
67Ranchero u love it eh just postin away i dont understand how some people have like 5,000 posts must have no life at all
Love it? No, I hate it, but this SARS stuff may be the most important story of the year. Hopefully it will mutate itself out of existance, but if it doesn't this **** could have a massive world wide effect, only time will tell.
Today's news... Chinese experts in hard-hit Guangdong province told the scientists they have found a rare form of airborne chlamydia in some of their SARS patients, raising the possibility that more than one germ may be involved. Other Chinese cases suggest the disease might be passed by touching something tainted by a sick person's mucous or saliva. SARS continued to spread Saturday even as health officials stepped up their efforts to contain the disease. New cases were reported in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, while Hong Kong reported three more deaths and 39 new cases, while Malaysia announced its first death. In Hong Kong, workers covered head to toe in protective gear captured rats and roaches at an apartment complex where at least 250 people were infected. They also rounded up pets — eight dogs, 14 cats, two hamsters and two turtles — after a cat was found to carry a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are commonly found in animals, but microbiologists believe SARS is caused by a new form of coronavirus. Scientists are trying to determine if animals somehow carried the virus through the complex. Authorities at United Christian Hospital in Hong Kong announced Saturday that they would temporarily suspend all non-urgent services after more than 10 medical staff contracted the disease. The hospital has been one of the main care centers of SARS patients.
