Sars-Like Virus being monitored
http://www.kpic.com/news/health/Global-health-officials-monitoring-new-SARS-like-virus-170986711.html
Another epidemic scare is starting to gain some weight in the health world these days. A germ has been linked to a death and a critical condition, and that germ is known as a coronavirus. A coronavirus is from a family of viruses that cause the common cold as well as SARS. So far it is believed to have killed at least one person in Saudi Arabia. Usually, one person is not enough to be wary of an epidemic. Yet there have been connections made between this case, and one about a 60-year-old Saudi who died earlier this year. The samples from both these cases match up. The last case could be the big breakthrough. There is one person in an intensive care unit at a London hospital that is believed to also be affected by the germ, one of the main issues they are having is kidney failure. As far as we know, respiratory viruses aren't usually known to cause serious kidney problems. At this moment, we have three cases, that may or may not be linked, they all did have one geographical thing in common though, each case had originated in Saudi Arabia. It may be too early in the stages to do so, but restricting immigration out of Saudi may be the next move to help contain this. "It's still (in the) very early days," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. "At the moment, we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in." Looking at this from a WHO standpoint though, combating an epidemic seems to have 3 steps, identification, containment, and constructing a cure. One of the scarier things is that we don't know how its spread, how fast it can spread, who else has it, are there carriers, is this from an animal infection, there are many questions that need to be answered before any drastic moves are made.
It seems that there are epidemics of new diseases every couple of years, like the SARS epidemic about 8 years ago, and the Swine Flu about 3 years ago. They appear out of nowhere and they seem to go away just as suddenly. The sources of these diseases are usually found, however, containment has always been an issue. It is impossible to keep people from international interaction, mostly because of the way our economy works. Also, it doesn't seem like cures are always found for these epidemics. There are alwasy precautions to take to prevent ourselves from getting the disease, but were the cures ever found for SARS and the Swine Flu? How do these diseases eventually go away? It seems that no matter how much we try to understand about health care and medicine, professionals are constantly stunted with new questions that they cannot answer.
ReplyDeleteThe article says that it is was most likely contracted from animals and that there is no reason to have travel restrictions at this time. A few cases of a virus doesn't seem like it should be of much concern yet. People die more times a day crossing the street. A global fear of epidemic from such a small outbreak shows that we really all are connected in today's day. This is more of a reason to bring better healthcare to nations that do not have sanitary living conditions or lack of medical care. This is where diseases and epidemics start, in the poorest areas.
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