New SARS-like virus discovered before it causes outbreak
Four months ago a virus had been discovered that gave the WHO a bit of a fright. It was a coronavirus, the same kind of virus that caused the SARS breakout in 2003 that swept the world and put humanity at risk, the significance behind it being a coronavirus is that there are few viruses of this type, and they tend to be very dangerous. Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki's laboratory in Saudi Arabia is to thank for this mankind-saving event. The first case that arose was a 60yr old Saudi Arabian man with a diagnosed case of pneumonia. After his kidneys failed, and he later died, it seemed that something was amiss. Dr. Zaki and his associates acted quickly and diligently to help prevent another string of preventable deaths by identifying the virus, and making a test that could be used worldwide to detect any more cases. After posting his information online to a website designed to alert other health officals, a new case was quickly unveiled. With the fast actions of Dr. Zaki, they were able to identify it as such and continue to test anyone the patient had contact with. Luckily there have been no new cases and if anything pops up, were ready to deal with it. The means of how this situation was handled are impressive, and show that mankind has a will to live. Within a month of finding an abnormality in a sickness, they now know so much more about it and are prepared to handle it. This article hopefully concludes this SARS-like virus' potential of being a threat.
Is this test only to dectect the SARS-like virus? or is there a cure for it? It would be beneficial for WHO to alert people in the world about how to prevent transmission of such viruses and what some of the symptoms may be. Most people do not know anything about SARS except for the fact that it is deadly and killed a lot of people in 2004. Instead of keeping information within the medical field, it should be taught in schools and other organization to better prevent and know about such viruses.
ReplyDeleteImpressive. While the threat of a coronavirus is very real and scary, there is a certain amount of comfort we can take in the fact that modern technology allows information to be transmitted so quickly to such a large audience. While the loss of one man's life is tragic, it is important that we look at the big picture. Pneumonia cases should be looked at more carefully for the time being, but being able to quarantine any other infected people will prove to save many more lives.
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