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Old 10-12-2008, 10:32 AM   #1 (permalink)
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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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Old 10-12-2008, 10:57 AM   #2 (permalink)
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This is the simplest reason for not wanting porous borders and just letting people in indiscriminantly.

When Ellis Island was in play, people were screened for illness

ELLIS ISLAND
Quote:
During inspection, those immigrants who appeared sick or were suffering from a contagious disease were marked with blue chalk and detained for further medical examination. The sick were taken to Ellis Island hospital for observation and care, and once recovered, could proceed with their legal inspection. Those with incurable or disabling ailments were excluded and returned to their port of departure at the expense of the steamship line on which they arrived. In an attempt to discourage steamship companies from transporting ill, disabled or impoverished passengers, an immigration law of 1903 imposed a $100 fine for every excluded passenger.
TB in NYC is double the rate of the rest of the US
Quote:
Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis accounted for 21 of these cases. Foreign-born New Yorkers continue to be disproportionately affected, accounting for 70% of new tuberculosis cases. "Tuberculosis can be both prevented and cured," said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas R. Frieden.

"We've made significant progress in reducing the risk of this disease in New York, and in controlling the drug-resistant strains. But New York City's TB rate is still double the rate of the nation, and we have much to do to lessen the impact on foreign-born New Yorkers."

Tuberculosis Diagnoses among Foreign-Born New Yorkers

Foreign-born New Yorkers accounted for 672 new diagnoses of TB last year, a decline of 3% from 690 cases in 2005. However, the TB rate in New York's immigrant community is 28.4 per 100,000 people " more than five times the citywide average for U.S.-born residents (5.4) and more than six times the national rate, which was 4.8 in 2005, the latest year for which national data are available. The most common countries of origin for newly diagnosed TB patients were: China (110 cases), the Dominican Republic (53), Ecuador (50), Mexico (47), and the Philippines (35). Queens and Brooklyn, the boroughs with the largest proportion of foreign-born residents, also have the highest TB caseloads.
I'm not so worried about the catostrophic, as they will be very little that can be done immediately for them. I'm much more worried about the simplest things we can do which are being eroded because people are "paranoid" or "selfish".
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Old 10-12-2008, 06:38 PM   #3 (permalink)
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BTW, if you all have never read The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, it is deeply worth it.

If the government had any sense, they wouldn't waste their money on stupid wars and missile shields, they'd fund the crap out of defenses against bio-threats like hemorrhagic fevers and other ultra-plagues. There are some mighty, mighty scary things out there, folks, and I hope they never again come a-knockin' on our door in the US of A.
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Old 10-13-2008, 03:35 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by little_tippler View Post
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.
It depends on the strain of Ebola - some strains do have a kill rate approaching 100% (Ebola Zaire) , others "merely" 40 to 50% or so (Sudan).

I don't think Ebola is the worry when it comes to worldwide epidemics - it burns out too quickly. But we will see some worldwide contagion come along that will do a 1918 on us eventually. Not sure we'll see it coming though, no matter how much time we spend studying Avian flu.
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Old 10-13-2008, 04:02 AM   #5 (permalink)
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It has a 100% kill rate with 3 total victims?
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Old 10-13-2008, 04:11 AM   #6 (permalink)
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well yeah. That's why it's still not so worrying because there's a chance some people will be able to fight it. One things is for sure, it can kill you fast.
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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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Old 10-13-2008, 04:22 AM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by levite View Post
BTW, if you all have never read The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, it is deeply worth it.
Yeah, that scene where the guy's internal organs liquify and he starts bleeding out through his eyeballs really stays with you! Everytime I get a cold i think about that!
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Old 10-13-2008, 04:32 AM   #8 (permalink)
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yes, that's the book! It is a chilling account...
__________________
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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Old 10-13-2008, 07:33 AM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
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yes, that's the book! It is a chilling account...
It is also not fiction. He changed a few names, but other than that, it's factual.
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Old 10-13-2008, 08:31 AM   #10 (permalink)
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Yeah, factual. Exactly. I read that book when I was 11 or 12 and I will NEVER be able to erase those images from my mind.
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Old 10-13-2008, 10:30 AM   #11 (permalink)
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The only way of it reaching- say- the US- is if A- someone is stupid enough not to get shots before going there/coming back, B- if someone is TRYING to put an intentional plague on humanity (which is very movie-esque). Hopefully security HAS gotten a lot better to prevent such a thing....but I really don't think so. I don't think homeland security is seriously taking into factor the high possibility of such a thing happening.
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Old 10-13-2008, 12:47 PM   #12 (permalink)
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This may sound somewhat cold, but viruses that have a 100% mortality rate and swiftly kill the infected individuals are less likely to pose a significant threat to society at large. Basically, the damage is easier to contain. The truly insidious viruses do not produce noticeable symptoms for a period of time and have the ability to transmit by both air and contact, enabling them to spread with frightening rapidity.

For that reason, I am not overly worried about these super deadly viruses.
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Old 10-13-2008, 01:33 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mixedsubstance View Post
The only way of it reaching- say- the US- is if A- someone is stupid enough not to get shots before going there/coming back ...
What "shots" are people supposed to get? There's no vaccine against this disease.
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Old 10-13-2008, 02:49 PM   #14 (permalink)
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As for the TB in New York, I doubt those statistics take into account that many of those foreigners test positive because they have had the ABG vaccine against TB. Although not offered in the US for anyone but military and health care workers such as myself, it will cause you to test positive on the PPD test that America uses to screen us...
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Old 10-13-2008, 06:08 PM   #15 (permalink)
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The Hot Zone was based on stuff from my home town. We have our own Ebola virus. Hooray for us! Reston ebolavirus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 10-13-2008, 06:31 PM   #16 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mixedsubstance View Post
Hopefully security HAS gotten a lot better to prevent such a thing....but I really don't think so. I don't think homeland security is seriously taking into factor the high possibility of such a thing happening.
Not even close. There was that huge controversy no more than a year or two ago about a man with a rare drug resistant and highly infectious form of TB that traveled in and out of the U.S. nearly 80 times.
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Old 10-14-2008, 06:39 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Supple Cow View Post
Yeah, factual. Exactly. I read that book when I was 11 or 12 and I will NEVER be able to erase those images from my mind.
I read that book too. First book I ever bought for a long train ride...

Yeah, I've been a germophobe ever since. I have UV lights all around, and can be sealed up in my house if something does spread like the flu.

If you've ever seen the show Regenesis, they talk about a human version of Mad Cow disease. That is really scary. You eat infected meat, eggs or vaccines, you can pass it through blood donations and other bodily fluid exchanges. And in 7 years, the prions eat holes in your brain. There is no test for it until after you are dead.
Homepage | CDC Prion Diseases

Trust me, I wanted to be a virologist until I figured out that I would become so paranoid that I couldn't function in society.
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Old 11-01-2008, 06:41 PM   #18 (permalink)
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New Human Brain Virus


Actually, here in the West, we are not so safe as you might think:-

There is a new respiratory and neurological virus going around at the moment which attacks the brain.

It can be transmitted from person to person via saliva (such as during kissing, sharing drinks, or sharing utensils).

This virus infection often starts as a sore throat that does not go away, and then soon progresses through the organs of the body.

Once in the brain, this virus causes significant changes in personality and behavior: you experience short term memory difficulties; word recall problems; have increasing difficulty spelling words; you lose acuity in your visual, hearing and olfactory senses; there is a significant sudden loss in the ability to experience pleasure (anhedonia); a big drop in sexual libido; a noticeable loss of general drive and motivation. It creates quite a significant change in mental state. This virus often instigates very extreme generalized anxiety disorder states.

This virus also starts to weaken the body's connective tissue, so that the ligaments slowly get slack.

It causes several other unusual symptoms, including periodontal disease, and skin changes.

For more details about this virus, see my web site.

My web site can be located by Googling the phrase:

"Chronic Sore Throat / Mood Virus"

If anyone with virology or infectious disease expertise can help in any way, or offer any useful advice, I would be very grateful if you would contact me (via my web site: chronicsorethroat wordpress com).


Last edited by Hip; 11-01-2008 at 08:24 PM..
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Old 11-01-2008, 09:21 PM   #19 (permalink)
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That doesn't sound too good. I am a little paranoid that even if there was a mass health risk and our government health agencies knew about it, they wouldn't tell the public if they weren't able to fix it.

It does sound like a virus instead of a bacteria infection since it is getting through the blood-brain barrier. Then again, it might be something like valley fever. Coccidioidomycosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Talk to some universities, there are some people there that may want to study a bunch of people with this.
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Old 11-02-2008, 10:51 AM   #20 (permalink)
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I considered fungal infections, but what I have caught passes from person to person, infecting your work colleagues, housemates, etc, and I could not find any species of fungus that is contagious person to person.

The human race needs to put the highest priority and effort into (ultimately) completely eliminating infectious diseases.

Even in the West, we are all infected from a young age with dozens of viruses, many if which cause mild or subclinical symptoms or syndromes (such is irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety disorders, depression, etc), and we just go on suffering, since there is little we can do with present medical understanding and technology.

But in the future, the whole human race will hopefully become much healthier - in mind and body - if we eliminate these stupid infectious pathogens by some clever technology.

Last edited by Hip; 11-02-2008 at 10:53 AM..
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Old 11-02-2008, 12:41 PM   #21 (permalink)
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Quote:
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I considered fungal infections, but what I have caught passes from person to person, infecting your work colleagues, housemates, etc, and I could not find any species of fungus that is contagious person to person.
Ringworm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are plenty of parasitic fungi which infect humans and are communicable.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Hip View Post
The human race needs to put the highest priority and effort into (ultimately) completely eliminating infectious diseases.
This will never happen. You would do well to review a little highschool genetics, or even have a peek at some more advanced molecular biology to see why I make this claim. Transduction and transformation are forces which are too strong for what you propose.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hip View Post
Even in the West, we are all infected from a young age with dozens of viruses, many if which cause mild or subclinical symptoms or syndromes (such is irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety disorders, depression, etc), and we just go on suffering, since there is little we can do with present medical understanding and technology.
Many of these "syndromes" have been demonstrated to be a result of our lower parasitic load. Take the case of IBS which is being treated by intentional exposure to some parasites, which help keep IgE levels in-check which in turn reduces the auto-immune toll of IBS.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hip View Post
But in the future, the whole human race will hopefully become much healthier - in mind and body - if we eliminate these stupid infectious pathogens by some clever technology.
Biology is a terribly elegant system. We will never be 100% immune / safe.
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Old 11-02-2008, 05:33 PM   #22 (permalink)
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I wouldn't say never. I could see there being some treatment with nano-probes / nano-machines that will constantly analyze your blood for things that shouldn't be there.


We might become borg at that point though.
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Old 11-03-2008, 10:08 AM   #23 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ASU2003 View Post
I wouldn't say never. I could see there being some treatment with nano-probes / nano-machines that will constantly analyze your blood for things that shouldn't be there.


We might become borg at that point though.
Your assertion ignores the fact that all things biological are subject to genetic drift. Just as we adapt new treatments, parasites and pathogens adapt to their changing clime. I am confident in saying we will never be 100 "free". I just know too much about this stuff (biotech degree).

Oh yeah, and lets not forget the engineered stuff thats scary business.
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Old 11-03-2008, 03:34 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Many thanks JamesB for your suggestion on a communicable fungal pathogens, namely ringworm.

However, the mystery bug I caught is definitely something else. The full clinical symptoms are found on my site here: chronicsorethroat wordpress com (just put in the dots yourself).

It is quite possibly a new pathogen. My guess is it this might be a new virus from the influenza A genus, or perhaps the enterovirus genus.



I fully agree with your point on Transduction (the natural process where bacteriophage viruses inject new genetic information packages into bacteria, thereby helping them to evolve and survive).

My point is that in higher multicellular life forms (such human, animal, plant, etc), viruses are an outdated mode of conveying genetic information, a legacy from the world of unicellular organisms such as bacteria. When nature invented sex as a means to spread genetic material around in higher life forms, the evolutionary role of the virus - which was (and still is) vital for unicellular organism evolution - suddenly becomes not only unhelpful, but in fact rather pernicious for animal and plant survival.

It's high time we left this ancient system of viral genetic injection behind, now that we have sex as our gene injection system. Except of course when we use viral vectors under controlled conditions, such as introducing new genetic packages into our body's cells for gene therapy.

I don't know of any circumstances where a human virus is of any benefit to the human being (with the exception of herpes simplex perhaps, which although it appears to help precipitate Alzheimer's disease, apparently also confers protection against the Bubonic Plague - well, in mice at least).

Random injections of genes into lower unicellular life forms may be nature's ingenuous way of widening the gene pool for the benefit of these unicellular creatures; for unicellular life forms, this transduction is an effective means of rapid evolutionary adaptation.

But for higher life forms such as us, random viral injections of genes into our cells frequently screws up our metabolisms.

It is just a question of whether we are clever enough to do something about eliminating this ancient legacy system of evolution - the viral conveyance of genes - from messing with the human metabolism.


Last edited by Hip; 11-03-2008 at 05:31 PM..
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