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SARS Contained
The World Health Organization has declared that SARS is contained, for now. Toronto has engaged in extensive analysis of the outbreak there, leading to a number of interesting and in-depth stories about the progression of the disease.
A million more to go. Until people, health officials and governments take outbreaks of this nature more seriously. We'll always be in danger from them. In a time when people couldn't just span the globe in a matter of hours, diseases like the flu still managed to kill 25 million people.
Nowadays we are tied together by a lattice work of airlines and freedom of worldwide travel that make us so much more at risk. Of course, where do you draw the line? We need some serious concern, not worldwide paranoia.
I'm not saying SARS was badly handled everywhere. I'm just saying that there may very well come a time in the future where another event starts just like one...but the ending will be much worse.
I like that. "SARS Contained". It has a nice ring to it.
Now, could we have this plastered all over your fear mongering channel? I believe you call it CNN.
I'm not saying you're a homophobe, but your "solution" would at some point entail quarantining infected vectors. This would mean that if someone were to claim AIDS as an epidemic (which some already do) then millions of infected people would need to be separated from the uninfected population. Considering the demographics of AIDS infection, it is clear that large numbers of gay men would necessarily need to have their lives disrupted in order to meet quarantine requirements.
Also if we consider that AIDS is a non-curable disease, there is really no chance for the infected to ever come out of quarantine, thus leaving them in an apartheid-esque state of submission.
The most important thing is to raise health standards globally so that people are more able to ward off disease as they encounter it. Starting with something as easy as implementing U.S. poultry and livestock cleanliness standards to certain asian countries' food processing industries would go a long way in fighting off outbreaks of flu-like viruses.
I have been pwned because my
Think about it. In 5-6 months from now, who will be surprised when news comes out that SARS is on the loose again, and then a similar announcement 11-12 months from now from the WHO that it is contained (once again).
/. for their recent bad habit of republishing old stories, my comment is somewhat relevant -- not at all a troll, but a comment on my lack of confidence in the WHO to make such a statement, and one that has been made before...
While I was picking on
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
How many people in the states died of it?
:P
Over 800 people died worldwide, and over 8000 had it. See here
SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians.
You know, the flu doesn't spread so virulently during the summer. Heck, most of the time flu season is during the winter. The flu doesn't hide during the summer, it's just dormant and afflicting only a few people.
The question is, once fall/winter comes, will SARS spread again? And will it be worse now - i.e., is it dormant and people will unwittingly spread it to other people?
It may be contained now, but is it really? Or if the weather turns a bit cold, we see more outbreaks?
since the flu kills about a thousand times more people in a year than this stupid SARS virus did.
True, but it's the death rate you should be concerned with, not how many people died. The flu kills a thousands more people in a year then SARS because hundreds of millions of people (Billions?) get the flu in a year.
The death rate for people infected with SARS is much , much higher then the death rate for people infected with the flue.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
How much did Toronto have to pay off the WHO to lift the travel ban the first time, when as soon as they did the SARS outbreak took off like wildfire? I think the WHO don't know jack and are just looking to make some bucks off threatening cities with 'travel bans'.
" For crying out loud, you had a greater chance of dying by slipping in your bathtub. Even in China. "
:)
I'm not a big fan of reasoning like this. I may have a chance of slipping in the bathtub, but I can also take steps to prevent it. I also know exactly when and where it can happen so I can be on my guard. In the case of infection, I don't know when somebody else has it. That's what's truely scary about it.
Your heart's in the right place, but the "worry over greater risks" reasoning could use some tuning.
"Derp de derp."
I really worry about how we as a wealthy nation use anti-biotics like candy, for things like the common strep throat. When I see the SARS case I see somthing out of a Stephen King Novel with the plot of being pawns in someones game. If we had a better combined effort in sharing meds, technology we would have half of the problems that we are facing.
It's easy. The disease is contained (probably) in the human population. We know (probably) who all the infected individuals are, and they are being treated with appropriate precautions.
SARS, however, is not a disease limited to humans. The original hosts are thought to be animals. Candidates include several mammalian species, as well as a number of birds. Right now, dozens of different species are being exposed to the SARS virus in labs on several continents, in an attempt to determine which animals may act as a reservoir for the virus.
So, SARS is contained--but there is the potential for future outbreaks as long as the virus still exists in animal populations. Similarly, Ebola is usually readily contained when there is a human outbreak, but it keeps coming back because wild primates act as a natural reservoir.
~Idarubicin
...The death rate for SARS has been standing at around 10% since March. The fact is even when it was reported as being "out of control" in several places around the world it still wasn't spreading as virulently as influenza does every year-- or cholera-- or malaria...
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
True, but it's the death rate you should be concerned with, not how many people died. The flu kills a thousands more people in a year then SARS because hundreds of millions of people (Billions?) get the flu in a year.
The death rate for people infected with SARS is much , much higher then the death rate for people infected with the flue.
True, but compared with something like yellow fever, which afflicts 200,000 every year and kills 30,000, SARS affects many fewer people AND has a lower mortality rate. But I don't see any headlines about yellow fever and no mad rush to find a cure.
And I wouldn't rule out a disease as a problem just because of a lower mortality rate. The very fact that 1.9 million children die of diarrheal diseases every year, 1 million people die of malaria every year, and 2 million die of tuberculosis every year means that they are more serious health problems than SARS. The fact that the mortality rate can be low for these diseases with proper care is irrelevant. In the real world these are the killers, not SARS.
For more information on the diseases we still really need to worry about, check out the WHO Infectious diseases site
I may have a chance of slipping in the bathtub, but I can also take steps to prevent it. Especially since slipping in your bathtub is usually your own fault. Running into a person with SARS usually is not. Things which can harm you without personal error tend to frighten me more.
That's because of how well it's spread in densely populated areas, eg in Asia. It's possibly more contagious, but then nobody's been getting their seasonal SARS shots, either.
You can't compare how many they've killed this year if one is being fought with foreknowledge and another races through a petri dish of panicked people.
If we continue using antibacterial products EVERYWHERE, we will have a whole lot of diseases far worse than SARS on our hands. Don't people understand that by using mild antibacterial agents, we are helping disease evolve into strains that we may never be able to deal with?
Oh dear God, the people posting messages stating that SARS was over-hyped and nothing serious are really, really looking like twits.
First off, if the 'media hype' had not taken place, countries would have not been pressured to take measures (by scared civilians) to control it. Thus, SARS would have spread to a MUCH larger percentage of the population. 10% deathrate doesn't sound like revelations or anything, but think of your elderly parents and grand parents. They would likely have a very tough time. Remember, the 10% if overall. That can mean 19-35 year olds have a 3% chance of death, but elderly could have something like 85-90% since their immune systems can't cope.
Secondly, scientists still don't understand the virus. Wouldn't you like to give them a little extra time to come to grips with how it works and what gets rid of it before you talk out of your ass about how it's not serious?
Third, this is a virus. Not a bacterial infection. It's quite likely this will become a recurring disease. You take drugs to help fight it, most gets killed off, some mutates, goes to sleep for a few months, then re-infects with the mutated virus; then is likely harder to battle.
Finally, did you people who think it's not serious bother to read about the condition of SARS patients who have recovered? Didn't think so. They may have survived, but most have permanent scarring in their lungs. You want that to happen to you and your family? Want to have to wait and wonder, dreading the next 'season'? What if it comes back? You might not be able to survive a second infection since your lungs are still damaged from the first one.
I don't mean to sound offensive, but what sort of idiot wants to take chances? It really bothers me that 'geeks' would feel this way, considering we are supposed to be some of the smarter ones. Guess I was wrong...
> SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
;-)
So what disease do we need to eliminate American overconsumption?
You don't see any headlines about Yellow Fever for one reason:
Whitey doesn't get it.
There, I said it. SARS cases first showed up last November in China and Asia, but it wasn't until cases showed up in Toronto in March that it got into the mainstream Western news media. Yellow fever, TB, even ebola and hanta virus are not a problem for the western world. Ebola and Hanta are horrible.. but they kill so quickly that they can't really spread and most of the people with TB around the world live in poverty, so aren't visiting Toronto on a regular basis.
You guys remind of the people who say that the whole uproar over Y2K wasn't necessary. Nothing happened, so that proves the whole prevention effort was unnecessary, right? All overblown hype!
But a lot of stuff was actually fixed. There would have been problems if it hadn't been attacked like that. Of course the media was too sensationalistic about it, but Y2K was a problem, or at least it could have been.
SARS turned out not to be that big of a problem. There was a huge containment effort and much media hype. People keep pointing out that the flu kills many more people.
So what do they suggest should have been done? Just give them anti biotics and see what happens? The reason SARS was not such a huge problem at the end is precisely because of the huge containment effort. What if SARS had been allowed to spread so that it had affected just 1% of the people who get flu every year? Major disaster, and by that time it would have been impossible to contain.
I think WHO did exactly the right thing, especially since so little was known about the virus. Most diseases take centuries to wipe out, we actually managed to contain SARS before it became widespread! Sounds to me that's exactly what we have organizations like the WHO for, and it actually worked.
Of course the media hype meant that the economy was hurt more than it had to be. It wasn't perfect. But I think we can be pretty happy, overall.
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