Slashdot Mirror
EV71 Outbreak In China Sparks Fears For Olympics
OMNIpotusCOM writes "CNN is reporting an outbreak of Enterovirus 71 (or EV71), that has affected more than 3700 children and killed over 20, is creating concern for the visitors and athletes expected for the Beijing Olympics in August. The virus can cause 'poliolike paralysis,' according to the article."
5... 4... 3...
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...it only affects Tibetans {ducks head}
Table-ized A.I.
The party bugs you!
... of a whopping 0.5% chance of death?
and china will make the pro Tibetan people get this.
i'd hate to see what happens 28 days later
That's all this is. Wake me when it has killed off more than a tiny pin prick of some nation's population. Then we may worry.
Sweet dreams.
I'm sure the Chinese have some sort of perfectly safe medicine for this.
I guess a gathering of people from all over the world, who stay for a while then go back home, does provide a certain degree of danger when it comes to spreading any type of contagious disease.
The Long Now Foundation
Killed 20 children. How many children are there in China? or Peking?
How many car accidents were there, or murders. Who cares, basically.
Nerd/News/Importance Factor Zero.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Why do these illnesses always spring up in China first? Is there a severe lack of hygiene there, or something?
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
Let's pander to maternal instincts and do whatever the liberal crowd want "in the name of the children!"
...and that's my conspiracy theory.
That's all this is. Next up: athletes refuse to compete as UN surgeons warn of the contagious nature of this bug and they don't want to leave them at home to watch their parents on TV from the other side of the planet...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
So we'll soon have hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world traveling into a very densely populated area with a deadly virus which has no vaccine available (which hardy matters since the people would be unlikely to get vaccinated) and then all roughly at the same time traveling back across the globe. Add to this China's documented sanitary and even pollution problems. And a government with a history of hiding facts that might impact it financially or even just embarrass it. What could go wrong? Lets just pretend we didn't see this coming and act surprised when the pandemic hits.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Remember SARS? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS
We had SARS in Toronto in 2003. It was a major problem. My wife's business relies on foreign visitors. She had zero business that year. Canadians were unwelcome in other countries no matter how far they lived from Toronto.
The outbreak started in Asia in November 2002. My wife's business literally dropped to zero the following summer. It is too early to say what will happen with the Olympics but one possibility is that they could be completely cancelled. The Chinese will do anything to keep that from happening but they have to be very careful. If the rest of the world thinks China is covering something up, they will stay home.
"The virus can cause "poliolike paralysis" according to the article."
Does the man know no bounds?
Torino was the last (summer) olympics of human history.
But this is EV71's merit, not Tibet's merit!
The International Symposium of Computer Architecture is in China next month. This is more relevant to slashdotters than the Olympics.
Let's cancel the olympics.
No, seriously.
The Olympics exists for two purposes - to allow athletes to compete against others around the world for sport and to promote the idea of international competition taking the form of athletic events instead of warfare. To promote sport and to promote peace.
In the case of the former, per-sport international athletics associations can more than supplant the role.
In the case of the latter, no one can take a look at the bloody history of the 20th and early 21st centuries since the modern olympics were founded and believe that the Olympics has been terribly successful at promoting peace.
Instead, what ends up is that every two years (now that they're staggered) there's a massive orgy of corruption and controversy; and from time to time we have to put up with someone like China or Nazi Germany hosting - or sometimes the U.S. will boycott Moscow or Moscow will boycott the U.S...
I think it's time to get rid of the Olympics.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
Whenever I get a disease from China, I'm hungry for another global pandemic like, thirty minutes later.
You need more psychedelic art in your life. rhesusmonkey.deviantart.com
From Wikipedia, Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease the disease that results from this virus:
And outbreaks in April alone:
Now I'm not saying it's of absolutely no concern, but it's not as if there's some massive killer disease rampaging through China. The average adult has nothing to worry about, and even in children the effects are rather mild with appropriate medical care. This will burn itself out well before the Olympics, and in a year no one will remember it; use some common sense here. If you want to avoid the Olympics (or encourage others to do so) there are much better reasons than this.
It's plain propaganda... Remember that there's people in China attacking CNN by the position they took about the Olympics and this is obviously a way to punch back from CNN... Not that I'm pro-China but is obvious the intentions of CNN.
ghostbar page.
um... this may seem like a curious question, but what -- exactly -- does this news story have to do with news for nerds, technology or whatever else that /. usually reports. Slow news day?
/. who'd like to the chance to compete. However... I'm still not seeing the relevance of this story. And I live under the Regime of Gordon Brownshirt in the People's Democratic Republic of the UK, so I'm not criticizing any nation on their lack of freedom. Stones, glass houses and all that.
I know that if China-bashing was made an Olympic sport there would be lots of people from
In milder cases, EV71 can cause coldlike symptoms, diarrhea and sores on the hands, feet and mouth, according to the journal Genetic Vaccines and Therapy.
How are they getting the poo on their hands, feet, and mouth? And what do the sores have to do with that?
No, really. Think of the children.
"... concern for the visitors and athletes expected for the Beijing Olympics in August," as the summary says, is quite simply idiotic and narcissistic (in a national sense), seeing as adults are rarely harmed by this disease, and the outbreak is 1000km or so from Beijing. Any concern among the Chinese government for the health of the athletes is merely to avoid a PR disaster, not because they think a westerner dying from EV71 is likely. Meanwhile there are kids dying - not nearly as many as are dying from other treatable diseases, such as malaria and influenza, but those are only rarely reported on anyway, as they've been killing millions for decades, and there is nothing new about that. If we are going to express concern over this (perhaps because we fear it will grow to a much larger scale, rather than because of the (relatively few) overall fatalities caused up until this point), the Chinese children, who are at present the only people affected or likely to be affected, are the ones we should be concerned about.
There actually is an antiviral which I expect would be active against this virus -- Pleconaril. Unfortunately, it has not been approved, and I haven't heard of much work being done with it after Phase II trials finished.
That being said, this particular virus really isn't a danger to healthy adults, mostly to children and the immuno-suppressed.
that has affected more than 3700 children and killed over 20 ... In a country of about a billion, why does this look unimpressive to me?
In that part of the world people, ducks and pigs live in close proximity which facilitates the exchange of viruses. They use human waste as fertilizer also. This is why the origin of most flu viruses begins there. I still remember the Hong Kong flu. Three days of feeling like death warmed over for me and most of my friends, took a month to only need a normal amount of sleep after getting over it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wrong. The Olympics now exists for only one purpose -- a venue for the advertisers. Don't overrate it.
Everyone knows evolution is just a theory.
There must be some intelligent design at work to make the Chinese sick.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Sure would suck to have another new-world / old-world style clash of infectious vectors again.
Try harder, read the whole sentence on CNN, and make sure that your source doesn't end up proving you wrong.
Enterovirus 71 (EV71)Enterovirus 71 (EV71)infection may be asymptomatic or may cause diarrhea, rashes, and hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). However, EV71 also has the potential to cause severe neurological disease. To date, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of host response to EV71 infection. It is stated in [4] that: "EV71 infection led to increases in the level of mRNAs encoding chemokines, proteins involved in protein degradation, complement proteins, and proapoptotis proteins."
"Enterovirus 71 (EV71), one of the major causative agents for hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), is sometimes associated with severe central nervous system diseases. In 1997, in Malaysia and Japan, and in 1998 in Taiwan, there were HFMD epidemics involving sudden deaths among young children, and EV71 was isolated from the HFMD patients, including the fatal cases. The nucleotide sequences of each EV71 isolate were determined and compared by phylogenetical analysis. EV71 strains from previously reported epidemics belonged to genotype A-1, while those from recent epidemics could be divided into two genotypes, A-2 and B
Tiger balls and bile from a bears gall bladder are sure to cure any virus. Though the concoction must be applied rectally every 10 minutes until cure or the unfortunate side effect of death. If symptoms persist, proceed to gouge self with needles until there is no blood left for the virus to infect. This is ancient secret Chinese medicine.
I think I may have had some of this stuff to drink last night....
in related news tibetan snowballs form the mountain thrown by monks are blamed for the outbreak....
Am I the only one that immediately thought that some hybrid DEC Alpha EV7 bug was causing problems in China!?
> The average adult has nothing to worry about, and even in children the effects are rather mild with appropriate medical care.
Adults are NOT immune from HFMD. Most of the adults infected by this virus show no sign of symptons, no harming to themselves done, but they can carry the virii and pass them to their children.
The HFMD is not a massive killer, indeed. However, in China the public health system is really fragile, and much worse in the rural area. Too few experienced doctors. Too little financial support, so that most people still pay for the huge medical bills draining all they have. Too poor sanitation. That is the killer.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Is crazy, over-sensationalized news, full of half-truths killing your children? Tune in at 11 to see!
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
You say now: "It is clear that this (and similar) viruses are responsible for epidemics" and "These outbreaks have been temporally and geographically limited." Sure, so far limited to localized areas. But the point is that now in a time of outbreak several factors are coming together that make it extremely more likely that the virus will be widespread. That anyone could seriously dismiss this as "but it hasn't happened yet" amazes me.
Could this spread some other way? Sure. Every year a new strain of the flu virus seems to originate in southeast Asia and then spread east to the Americas and then to Europe. It forms small pools and finally seems to die out (it's not recycled to SE Asia), but then next year a new strain starts again in Asia and the process continues. It's important not to dismiss the seriousness of these annual flu strains, they kill thousands to tens of thousands each year. But they are (usually) far from the pandemic that EV71 could be. So while this may also spread with mechanisms similar to the flu, it is alarming to not see people more concerned when this virus is increasing in rural areas that can be expected to make massive imports to Beijing just as hundreds of thousands of world travelers will arrive there, with the potential to carry it to all parts of the globe, and thinking that they are only suffering from the effects of China's pollution.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
More news as this story develops...
Since environmental regulatory laws seem non existent in China, I wonder what sort of horrific contaminants are floating around in their typical potable water? Routinely drinking water that is even close to be colored bright red/green/blue/black can not be good in the long term for the kidneys, bladder and liver. I expect to see a wild, unprecedented rise in their cancer rate, about 15-20 years after their recent industrial/manufacturing revolution has occurred.
..........FULL STOP.
Doesn't the setting remind anyone of this.
you know terrorist springing everywhere around the world, olympic games comming in a place where disease outbreak doesn't surprise anybody, security firm hired to protect the stuff, spreading pandemic instead. I do hope ex-kgb agent aren't environementalist and still like money.
Of course, this is all BS, just like SARS in 2002/2003. These "illnesses" do not exist. They are media operations designed to damage targeted countries, typically China, but sometimes Canada and other import partners of the US.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Thanks for that mental image. Now the zombie apocalypse doesn't sound as fun.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Max.
That's the cliche cavalry you hear! And the alliteration alligators are swimming fast behind them...
I mean, over 100 comments in a story about the Olympics and a virus that causes polio like symptoms, and not a single joke about athlets staying for the Paralympics?
Either the SA crowd has left the building or they grew up...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
welcome, media and honored guests! see what China is like in these here modern times!
well, yah, sure, we'll see for ourselves, then how you've grown.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Indeed, Enterovirus 71 is a true pathogen, and while rare, needs to be considered. In fact, poliovirus, causing paralytic polio, is in the enterovirus family. As a practicing physician I recently saw a case of myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord), here in the US, in a teenager who presented with leg weakness and sensory changes. EV71 was a possibility, although an unlikely one, and we later excluded it by testing. Enteroviruses are transmitted via the fecal-oral route. I.e. feces from an infected person is ingested by another, most commonly through unclean water secondary to poor sanitation. While not wanting to minimize the importance of this outbreak, there are regular outbreaks of enteroviruses and other fecally transmitted pathogens around the world including inside the US. The leading cause of childhood death around the world is diarrheal illness - often caused by such viruses (though children usually die from dehydration, not neurologic symptoms). As other posters have mentioned, the true treatment of these outbreaks is to prevent them through improved sanitation. Insofar as we can expect Beijing sanitation to be better than the rural areas in which this outbreak is being reported, the risk is correspondingly less. In fact, I suspect the Beijing authorities would make sure that athletes have access to toilets and clean drinking water.
You see? Everyone take note. THAT is the way you downplay the article. That answered everything in a very tidy way. Thank you.
Masaq, in your opinion, how alarming are these numbers and can we expect them to increase? The article was vague on a timeframe for the 3700 cases in one village - so it could have been festering for quite some time - but what's your take on the death toll (percentage-wise) and the general number of cases?
That's the said technique. It looks like that, all right. Come on sing with me:
(music in the background...)
Yo, maaaann, YO!!!!
This news kicks arse!
But they also had SARS...
The elections are near.
Integrity is scarce!
The elections are here.
The Olympics are a farce!
The elections are here.
People, fear, Fear, FEAR!
The elections are here.
People, hold your votes dear.
For Gerogie's goons to clear....
press right over HERE!!
Diebold!... Diebold!... Diebold!...
OR, Live in FEAR!!!!
The elections are here!!
Yo! Maaan! Yo!
The elections are here!
Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho!!
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
The major vector for avian flu virus entering the population is duck-pig-human, if my memory serves. And yes, in rural China, ducks and pigs are often raised together.
On the other hand, nobody cooks 'em better than the Chinese, so pandemic seems like a small price to pay.
Only 99.46% of us will survive! The HORROR!
First the torch relay, then the nationalist riots, now this. It's clearly their chickens coming home to roost...Just ask Rev. Wright.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
My son contracted HFM at his daycare at about 6 months. While concerning, with quick treatment he was quite comfortable again in a few days. When we figured out what was wrong he was one unhappy kid.
While I am not saying it is a minimal problem, access to modern medicine would make all the difference. The question is what kind of treatment options are available to the visitors there, how many kids go and how many parents bring the disease home.
If we end up with a major outbreak here or worldwide because of it, it could become an issue because it does have the potential to be quite a big problem if not treated quickly and could be quite an economic drain as children with the infection cannot be in child care and that stops parents from working. In the US, I think that would be the larger issue.
With SARS still in the back of people's mind, the whole thing may sound familiar. corrupt! muddleheaded!fraudulent! Wen Jiabao,resign! http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/beijing-olympics-boycott.html