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Author
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Topic: Global alert issued over Hong Kong 'super-flu'
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Kindgo
Advanced Member
Member # 2
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posted
Well it could have been planted.
I think tho it would have been started somewhere else. Why Asia?
I think its one more of the end time pestilince,
that Jesus told us about.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Hannahgirl
Advanced Member
Member # 756
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posted
Do you think this is a NATURAL virus/flu ??? Could it have been planted ?
I find the TIMING curious ! ![[uhoh]](graemlins/uhoh2.gif)
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God's Best Blessings to you all, Hannahgirl (His handmaid)
"The power of life and death are in the TONGUE".
Posts: 224 | From: The South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Kindgo
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Member # 2
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posted
Hong Kong Doctors Identify Killer Virus, More Dead
Wed March 19, 2003 06:07 AM ET
By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Doctors in Hong Kong have identified the family of a deadly pneumonia virus that has killed 14 and put several hundred people in intensive care, even as the disease appeared to jump to China's capital on Wednesday.
Hong Kong Health Minister Yeoh Eng-kiong told reporters that Germany and Taiwan had found patients with a virus similar to Hong Kong's, another clue to solving the outbreak over which the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first global health warning in 10 years.
Three more people had died by Wednesday in Hong Kong and one in Vietnam with symptoms linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Beijing People's Hospital reported two people down with an atypical pneumonia of a similar kind to SARS, and a hospital worker at a Beijing military hospital reported two dead from pneumonia, but could not say if it was the killer virus.
Those affected first show flu-like symptoms but within days could be on a life-support respirator.
"We don't expect a high mortality rate," said Yeoh. Two people have been discharged in Hong Kong after recovering with treatment by a cocktail of anti-viral drugs and steroids.
DEADLY BUT MAYBE NOT FLU
Some medical experts said knowing the virus family would make the disease easier to diagnose and opened the way for a vaccine to be developed, but stressed more work had to be done.
Microbiology professor John Tam, part of the Hong Kong team that made the discovery, said: "From the shape of the virus, it belongs to the paramyxoviridae family."
Though symptoms appear similar, this virus does not belong to the influenza group of viruses, said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert.
Laboratories around the World have been working to identify the virus strain.
"Severe acute respiratory syndrome is such a dramatic example of the importance of global surveillance and response capacity"' Dr James Hughes at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control told reporters in a telephone interview.
There have been fears that a surprise new strain of influenza could repeat the devastation of earlier global pandemics, such as the 1918 outbreak that killed an estimated 20 million people.
In Vietnam, a 66-year-old French doctor at the Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi became the second person to die from the disease in Vietnam. A nurse died at the weekend.
In Belgium's first suspected case of acute respiratory syndrome, the health ministry said a man was hospitalized after becoming suddenly and acutely ill on a flight back from a business trip in Hong Kong, Singapore and China.
However, although his symptoms conformed to the WHO's criteria for acute respiratory syndrome, he responded to treatment with antibiotics and got well within a matter of days.
WAS IT CHINA?
Getting to grips with the disease has been more difficult because of a lack of information coming out of China, where many doctors believe this virus originated.
Most infections are in China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, but it is fast spreading to Singapore, Canada and Taiwan, with linked cases in Australia, Britain, Brunei, Canada, Spain and the United States.
A pneumonia outbreak recently infected 300 and killed five in China's Guangdong province. Chinese journalists have been told not to report on pneumonia cases, and Chinese authorities only gave the WHO an initial report on their handling of the outbreak last Sunday.
Another specialist warned of possibly more trouble ahead.
"There are many kinds of such viruses and they mutate fast. Therefore drugs may not be able to catch up with the speed with which they mutate," said professor Kenneth Lee at the School of Pharmacy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Fear of the disease is spreading. Airports around the world are on guard, turning away passengers who have symptoms.
In Singapore, where 31 cases are reported, thousands of protective face masks had been sold in the past three days. Some pharmacies have run out of stock in Singapore and Hong Kong.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=2405610
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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Member # 2
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posted
Alert issued as flu fears grow
The World Health Organisation has taken the rare step of issuing an emergency travel advisory amid fears that a mystery virus which has infected scores of people in Asia may be spreading.
The WHO has so far not advised travellers to avoid any particular destination, but has warned them to watch out for symptoms, including a high fever, difficulty in breathing, and coughing.
In the latest development, a doctor from Singapore was taken off an airplane on Saturday and quarantined in a Frankfurt hospital, German health authorities say.
Two people travelling with him on the flight from New York to Singapore were also put in quarantine.
The WHO says it has received reports of more than 150 suspected new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) during the past week.
AFP news agency reports that 40 people have been infected in Vietnam.
First victim
It is thought the Hanoi outbreak started last month after an American businessman travelling from Shanghai infected hospital workers; he died in Hong Kong.
In Canada, a mother and child have reportedly died from the flu, while officials in Singapore report 16 cases.
The flu is thought to be highly contagious In Hong Kong, 47 medical workers are thought to have the virus; the Taipei authorities have reported three cases.
No figures are available yet from China where it is thought there are many cases.
"This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat," said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland.
"The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread."
The man quarantined in Frankfurt had apparently already exhibited symptoms of the mystery pneumonia while in New York.
'Sent home'
While he and two others were taken to hospital, other passengers who got off in Frankfurt were sent home and told to stay there.
People continuing their journey to Singapore will be met by health officials there.
Singapore and Taiwan have warned their citizens against travelling to the worst affected places - Hong Kong, China and Vietnam.
The Thai authorities have also imposed strict procedures to try to guard against the illness, instructing airlines to report immediately if any passengers display symptoms.
It is possible the outbreak is linked to a spate of "atypical pneumonia" cases in the southern Guangdong province of China in February, which killed five people and infected hundreds more.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/...fic/2853185.stm
Published: 2003/03/15 16:52:26
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Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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Member # 2
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posted
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...neumonia_who_dc
UN Warns of Worldwide Threat from Killer Pneumonia
24 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Richard Waddington
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (news - web sites) warned on Saturday of a worldwide health threat as a mystery killer pneumonia spread from east Asia to other parts of the globe.
Reuters Photo
Releasing a rare "emergency travel advisory," the United Nations (news - web sites) health agency said an ill passenger had been taken to an isolation unit in Frankfurt, Germany, on Saturday after being removed from a plane en route from New York to Singapore.
Some 155 other passengers who had been due to change planes or stay in Frankfurt were placed in quarantine there, while the remaining 85 passengers and 20 crew on the Singapore Airlines flight continued their journey, German officials said.
A spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO said there were reports two people had died in Canada, taking the death toll to nine worldwide since the first outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), an atypical pneumonia whose cause is not yet known, was detected in China in February.
"This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat," WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland said in a statement.
Among the dead is an American businessman taken ill in Hanoi after visiting Shanghai. He died on Thursday in Hong Kong where 47 cases have been reported.
Some 40 people were being treated in Hanoi, where one nurse died on Saturday, according to local health officials. Cases have also been reported in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the passenger taken from the plane in Frankfurt was a Singapore doctor who had visited New York after treating some of the first suspected SARS patients in Singapore.
"If the suspicion (of pneumonia) is confirmed, the transit passengers will have to remain under observation in quarantine for seven days in order to diagnose any possible infection and prevent the disease spreading," the Social Affairs Ministry in the state of Hesse, which includes Frankfurt, said in a statement.
HIGH ATTACK RATE
WHO issued its first global alert for 10 years earlier this week because of the speed at which the disease travels and because patients are not responding to the usual treatments for pneumonia, Thompson said.
"As reports of cases are confirmed, you will see that there is a very high attack rate. When they get sick, they get very sick," he said.
"We have been doing tests for weeks now in the world's best laboratories and we still do not know whether it is a virus or bacteria," the spokesman added.
Most of the latest cases have been among hospital workers.
The first outbreak was reported in February in China's southern Guangdong province, where 305 people were infected and five people died.
Singapore and Taiwan have issued travel warnings after some cases followed trips to Hong Kong or mainland China.
It was after a visit to Hong Kong, where anxious locals have been sweeping surgical masks off pharmacy shelves, that a Canadian woman died of severe pneumonia on March 5. Her son, who did not travel with her, also fell sick and died.
In its alert, WHO said travelers and airline crews needed to be aware of the first symptoms, which include high temperature and difficulty in breathing.
It was also likely that anybody taken ill would have been in contact with a person diagnosed with the disease or who had traveled to an area where cases had been reported, the alert said.
But WHO said it was not calling for restrictions in travel to any area. (--Additional reporting by Michael Steen in Frankfurt)
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Trafield
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posted
Mysterious Pneumonia Spreads in Asia
March 15, 2003 06:31 AM EST
http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=4&aid=315092047_5307_lead_story
HANOI, Vietnam - Medical authorities fear an outbreak of pneumonia in Asia may be spreading as new cases are reported in Vietnam, Taiwan and Canada.
Outbreaks of atypical viral pneumonia have been reported in southern China, Hong Kong and Singapore, although experts have not yet confirmed if a single strain is behind the outbreak.
A World Health Organization official said Saturday it was looking at control measures, including how airlines might take precautions to help prevent its spread.
No direct link has been established among the cases, but health experts are monitoring the various outbreaks.
Australia's foreign affairs department said it knew of at least 86 possible cases of atypical pneumonia, mostly among medical staff in the region, and might issue warnings about visiting certain nations.
The Canadian Press reported that a mother and son, who recently arrived from Hong Kong, died in Toronto from atypical pneumonia and four of their relatives have been hospitalized.
In Hanoi, one hospital with infected patients has been quarantined. At least 11 more people were admitted to another hospital after coming down with the same flu-like symptoms, officials said Saturday.
Health experts had previously hoped that the atypical pneumonia had been contained within the Hanoi French Hospital, which closed its doors Tuesday after more than two dozen hospital workers fell ill.
Officials at the Bach Mai Hospital said the new patients were either relatives or had some type of contact with the sick hospital workers. The new cases were being treated in the hospital's tropical disease unit and isolated from the rest of the hospital, said Nguyen Duc Hien, deputy director of the unit at Bach Mai.
The Hanoi outbreak started after an American businessman traveling from Shanghai via Hong Kong apparently infected up to 30 hospital workers, five of whom are listed in critical condition. The unidentified U.S. citizen was evacuated and died in Hong Kong.
Singapore has reported 16 infections and Taipei had three hospitalized with flu-like symptoms, including a husband and wife. A man from the Philippines who visited Vietnam earlier this month also has been diagnosed with atypical pneumonia.
In southern China's Guangdong province, a viral pneumonia outbreak in late January killed five people and sickened 300 others.
In Hong Kong, officials said Saturday that eight more hospital workers have come down with pneumonia, bringing the total number to 37. Two patients were listed in serious condition.
The disease had not spread to the general public, said Hong Kong's Secretary for Health, Food and Welfare Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong.
"What is very important is infection control, which needs to be put in place," said Pascale Brudon, the World Health Organization's representative in Vietnam. "We need to understand much more about what this disease is and how patients are reacting to different treatment."
A team of epidemiologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in Hanoi on Saturday to gather samples and try to determine what's causing the outbreak. A separate team of French doctors was expected to bring medicine and respirators.
Brudon said the World Health Organization was working with Vietnam's Health Ministry to provide guidelines to airlines to try to keep the outbreak from spreading.
"The plan is to contain the disease and then decide how many people are needed to support the government," Brudon said. "The prime minister is aware and also is working to develop a good plan."
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Kindgo
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Member # 2
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3/13/2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2846243.stm
The culprit may be an influenza virus
Health officials have issued a global warning about a virulent flu and pneumonia that has swept through hospitals in Hong Kong and Vietnam.
One man has died, dozens of hospital workers have fallen ill, and some of these are reportedly in a critical condition.
The precise origin of the infection is still unknown, but the key case involved an American businessman who died on Thursday morning in a Hong Kong hospital.
He had arrived into Hanoi in Vietnam from Shanghai on a business trip already suffering from severe respiratory problems.
When his condition deteriorated, he was transferred to Hong Kong for specialist care.
It affects a lot of people very quickly and their conditions can deteriorate very quickly
Dr John Tam, Hong Kong
World Health Organisation experts are concerned that he may have passed the infection on to many others on the way.
It has issued a "global alert" warning public health surveillance teams throughout the world to be vigilant for outbreaks.
"Any time you cannot diagnose the cause of a disease, it's very serious," said the World Health Organisation's David Heyman.
"What's fortunate is that at present it seems to be confined to hospital workers who have had contact with the patients; although now we're looking to see if people might be sick in the community."
Rapid spread
After the US patient's admission in Hanoi, 20 hospital staff fell ill with the same infection, and so far 50 staff in Hong Kong have shown similar flu-like symptoms and some have been admitted to hospital.
Of these, 23 are already showing clear signs of pneumonia. The condition of some of these is described as "critical".
None of the staff are known to have had any direct contact with the American - so no direct link with either his death, or the Hanoi outbreak, can be established.
Singapore's Ministry of Health says it is also closely monitoring three people admitted to hospital with an unusual form of pneumonia, all of whom had recently visited Hong Kong.
Professor John Tam, one of those treating the virus patients in Hong Kong, said: "It must have come from a patient and is probably spread from human to human in very close contact by aerosol, like sneezing.
"It affects a lot of people very quickly and their conditions can deteriorate very quickly," Mr Tam said.
Bird-flu ruled out
Concerns over the highly-contagious illness have prompted many staff and patients attending hospitals in Hong Kong to wear surgical masks.
The signs and symptoms of the disease in Hanoi include initial flu-like illness, with rapid onset of high fever followed by muscle aches, headache and sore throat.
In some, but not all cases, this is followed by double pneumonia - with some patients needing help from a ventilator to stay alive.
Hong Kong Health Minister Yeoh Eng-kiong said that testing was being carried out to try to identify the strain of virus involved.
Tests have so far revealed that it is a "B" strain version of flu.
He said: "The rate of infection is very high.
"At first it's a respiratory illness and it deteriorates into pneumonia.
"There is a possibility it can mutate or it may be a virus that is known to us."
But Hong Kong Government officials said the illness was not related to a strain of "bird-flu" that killed a man in February.
It is possible the outbreak is linked to a spate of "atypical pneumonia" cases in the southern Guangdong province of China in February, which killed five people and infected hundreds more.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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