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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...
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...it only affects Tibetans {ducks head}
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Yes. You should. Especially you. The rest of us.. Nah. Not really.
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?
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.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
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.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
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.
Think he's ever been in a car?
I'm sorry, I think "news for nerds, stuff that matters" covers medicine, politics, and social sciences. Try to stop clicking your ball-point pen and snapping your suspenders in unbridled rage whenever someone suggests that something besides computers is nerdy, you're making the rest of us look like idiots.
Hey! Look a Distraction!
Maybe they thought fecal play would cure that... Hey! Maybe all of that disgusting porn is onto something!
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.
they wipe their ass. then they DON'T wash their hands. Then they touch their mouth. and they just walk around in the dirt with no shoes.
not washing hands or having the access to soap and fresh running water is how these things become an epidemic.
cholera, rhinovirus, and this enterovirus all spread that way.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Suppose that driving carries a 0.005% chance of death, and that a person drives an average of 2.5 times per day for 10 years. This person has a 45% chance of dying in a car accident during those years. Because this calculation is wrong by more than one order of magnitude, driving must actually carry less than 0.0005% of death. I rest my case.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
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.
Care to show your math? Looks like rather egregious misuse of units to me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is flawwed reasoning.
If your risk of death is 0.005% for every time you drive, independent of all other times you drive, and you drive 9,131.25 times.
Then on average, you will have died 0.45 times.
But in fact the risk was always 0.005% for every time, and the risk was never 45%.
The assumption of independence is unreasonable, and there is no basis for assuming the risk is 0.005% chance of death _each_ time you drive.
This puts taking two 5-mile trips a day, via city driving at the same level as taking two 200-mile trips a day, including city driving, daily interstate and city driving during rush-hour, etc.
0.00005 * 2.5 * 365 * 10 = 0.45625 = 45%
If this were true, most Americans wouldn't live to be 40, they would die in car accidents. I claim that this percentage is dramatically wrong, and that driving is much, much safer than I just supposed. Probably 50,000 times safer than the original "0.5% chance of dying".
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Honestly, I think you're doing the math wrong. It's not simply 10*365*2.5*0.005, which does equate 45.625 (the 45% chance). Again, this is not simple adding the percentage up, we need to delve into the world of statistics.
It is more akin to 0.005% chance each time you drive, independent of the number of times you are driving. On average, you'd see 0.005% death (using your numbers) across many many many times driving, not simply hit the equivalent of 100% chance eventually.
I believe the math works out to be something more akin to working as a binomial probability distribution instead of simply additively. The percentage that a person will die while driving, over 9125 trials (number of times driving in 10 years, 2.5 times a day) will still be 0.005 (or approach 0.005).
This is because each trial is independent of each other, and cannot be equated to a lottery with a fixed number of entrants.
You can state that a single person's chance of dieing in a car is higher by driving more often because there are more events (trials) that take place. Each of these trials will net the same (or similar) results.
Obviously the equation falls apart as soon as the subject dies (as there will be no further trials).
I can't seem to drum up the math equations behind this at the moment. It has been a long day and I'm struggling to get back into thinking stats at the moment. But you get the idea, I'm sure.
Information is not Knowledge.
Wrong. The Olympics now exists for only one purpose -- a venue for the advertisers. Don't overrate it.
You are doing the math wrong. It's not additive. See Below (the posts inc. my comment). Man I wish my math wasn't rusty at the moment.
Information is not Knowledge.
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.
I'm sorry, I ought to eat my shoe... I really shouldn't try to do math in public...
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
In retro spec, to prove my point, it would mean that EVERYBODY would die while driving after less than 10 years years. Even moving the decimal points out to 0.00005, you're stating that it takes a mere 20 years puts you at a 91% chance to die from driving. Moving out to 25 years shows that it takes ~18000 times driving to ensure death. I don't like that thought, I drive pretty damn often and have used up a fair share of my "allotment"
Information is not Knowledge.
You're right, as was the poster above you. My math was dead wrong. But this isn't:
Driving 9125 times with a 0.005% chance of death each time, the probability of living is
0.99995^9125 = 0.63
So, you've got a 37% chance of dying. This is obviously still not the correct percentage. If we say that there is only a 0.0005% chance of dying, the calculation yields a 4.4% chance of death. Still too much. So, even though I suck at math, driving is more than 1000x safer than an activity which causes 0.5% death.
And you're right that I'm making gross simplifications about what types of driving I'm considering, but the original AC post said "I wonder if he's ever stepped into a car?"
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
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
I agree it'd be pretty limited in use, but why couldn't such a chance be calculated? Something like "These 100 people took 100000 arbitrary car trips over a 365 day period and 5 of them died in car accidents."
Obviously you couldn't apply it to a particular trip, as individual results would vary, but I think it'd be reasonable to use for an "average" person making an arbitrary trip. In other words, you could say "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash while going on a trip", but not "There's a 0.005% chance of dying in a car crash on this trip."
I'd be interested to know if/why that's not possible.
Maybe not
His/her maths is almost correct (i.e. wrong, but not enough to make his point invalid).
The calculation above doesn't take into account the fact that to die in a car crash on your second day (e.g. 5th drive), implies you already didn't die on the first day, so the actual chance of that is p*(1-p)^4, where p = 0.005% or whatever.
A quick spreadsheet exercise projecting this for 9125 drives (10 years @ 2.5 drives per day) shows the probability of death during the 10 years is 36.6%.
Another way to approach the problem that doesn't need either a spreadsheet or a geometric progression trick is to say that the probability of dying in this way during the 10 years is (1 - probability of not dying in that time). The probability of doing all that driving and surviving is (1 - p)^(9125), which = 63.4% when p = 0.005. (1 - 63.4%) = 36.6% giving the same answer as above.
However this doesn't change the fact that piojo's argument is 100% correct that the chance of death per drive must average lower than 0.0005%, as the 36% per 10 years rate is way too high.
"Why are you watching the washing machine?"
"I love entertainment, as long as it's clean"
You have a very valid point, but the only reason it's news is because of the Olympics, plain and simple. As you described, many children are killed everyday in China with little concern for them, so the only reason this makes CNN.com, /., or any other place is because of "concern for the vistors and athletes" - or, to use your words, because of the "PR disaster." The line that worries you is the same one that makes it news-worthy, as you have so aptly proved.
Primarily because all trips are fundamentally different.
The origin is different, the driver is different, the destination is different, the distance is different, the time is different, and the vehicle is different.
There are many factors that can make the percentages observed over thousands of trips invalid for the next trips.
There's not reason to assume there is any rough consistency in the risk associated with various trips.
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.
You're absolutely correct (and I'm not). However, see my post below, I redid the math, and I think it's right (the numbers are different, but it still supports my conclusion that driving is pretty safe).
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
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!?
In Florida, the state estimates an average of roughly 1.65 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Different states will have different numbers and obviously with an average, it will include many riskier events (drunk driving, street racing, etc.) along with your typical sunday drive probably being below this value. You could then pop the values in and get an estimate for a lifetime risk, but the value changes every year (it's been generally going down with time) http://www.flhsmv.gov/reports/crash_facts.html
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> 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.
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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.
Yeah. Those 200-1 shots never come in. The odds of that happening must be millions to one.
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.
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?
So if each person has 200 people that their death will directly affect, and some disease has a 1 in 200 chance of killing people, how many people will be affected by said disease?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Max.
Of course the spreading of disease in the new-world was terrible beyond imagination. Something that I feel is often overlooked in modern history. Native Americans did not have any type of inherited resistance, or medical experience/understanding, against the new diseases, so they died in their millions(apparently, though I would really like any links or reference to anyone that has done serious research on the subject; if anyone knows). As I understand it the prime killers there where; smallpox, measles, influenza and typhoid. In the end probably killing more native Americans than died in violent conflict with the invading Europeans.
However, while I do not thing such a thing is going to happen in our day and age. Mostly due to the fact that modern means of transportation has spread many disease through the world already, at various paces. And our immune system, and medical establishment, have had a good long time to study and eradicate. Still, there are a few nasties out there, and probably a few we don't know much about (diseases evolve to). So any type of precaution would be good. Preferably not to gather that many people together in one place at all, but since that is unavoidable; they should at least give the matter serious consideration.
The Long Now Foundation
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...
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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!!!!
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Yo! Maaan! Yo!
The elections are here!
Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho!!
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
Which Clinton are you talking about?
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
yeah like only 300 million people would die...
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