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Old 10-12-2008, 10:32 AM   #1 (permalink)
little_tippler
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New Virus - Similar to Ebola

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Mail and Guardian Online, Australia
Hunting for Virus X   click to show 


Hunting Virus X
Many years back, I read a fictional book on Ebola and it terrified me. I'm happy to since learn that it does not have a 100% kill rate, though it works incredibly fast. Compared to the spread of HIV, there is a much smaller risk of contracting it. What gets me is when it is said that it melts the body's organs. That makes me remember the very graphic descriptions in that book that made me shiver in fear.

Now it appears there may be a new virus hot on the trail of Ebola, with a possible 100% kill rate. I find this a little alarming. I was also scared when they spoke of the avian flu, and still do, as an inevitable epidemic.

Even so, the reality is not there. Not close, apparently, anyway. I do tend to wash my hands a lot and avoid people who are coughing near me. I don't think I'm paranoid yet.

I do wonder how I've been so lucky to live in a society where though there are several perils around, I am able to live a comfortable, relatively safe life like no other generation before me. I am aware that in many places in the world this still is happening. But the actual territory of my country has not seen unrest, medical, civil or otherwise, in a long time. So I wonder how long would I last in an event of this type.

Does this kind of potential medical catastrophe scare you in any way? Do you do anything in your daily life to help prepare for such an event? Can you relate to these possibilities? What does a viral epidemic mean to you?
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.


Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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