Wuhan Virus Update

Officially, China says 28k are infected and 563 dead.  Personal projection for tomorrow is 33k and 660 dead.  By Monday, it will be 50k and 1k, imo.

A recent post on Tencent that went back down really fast claimed the infections and deaths are way, way higher than the official numbers.  The Wuhan coronavirus would have a 1:6 kill rate (over 16%) if accurate.

Another report says the infection rate is undercounted and makes it seem the deaths are at a higher percentage than they are.

Singapore has at least 28 infected and business people are getting infected when visiting.

The 12th US case has been detected in Wisconsin.

Two cruise ships are quarantined.  More than 10 tested positive on the cruise ship off Japan.

Wuhan Virus Update

By the time this gets published, China will probably have over 3,000 confirmed cases and over 80 deaths.  15 cities are in quarantine.  China has started suspending at least some of intercity travel services.  Hong Kong has started selectively blocking mainlanders from entering the territory.

China has started testing an HIV drug to see if it will work to combat the disease.

5 million people left Wuhan before the lockdown.

The US has 5 cases.  One of them is in Maricopa County, AZ.  Arizona is a noted location for the elderly to move to and the virus preferentially kills the elderly.  This could get exciting.

Several countries the world over now infections.  France and Africa (Gabon) appear to have their first cases.  It does not, yet, seem to be spreading within those countries.

The US and France are evacuating their citizens from Wuhan.  The Americans are being shipped to San Francisco.

The disease is infectious during the incubation period.  The incubation period is averaging 10 days, some as long as 14 days, some as short as 1.  The interesting case is the woman from Chicago: she was in Wuhan a month ago and came down with the symptoms only this last few days.  She may be an outlier or was in contact with someone with the virus more recently than her trip and has not been identified.  There are reports some people never seem to develop symptoms, but are carriers.

NY Times has fairly good updates.

One Quarter of all Pigs in the World Died of Swine Flu...in China

Swine fever devastated China’s stock because with unsound governance, even sound regulations have perverse effects.

On a recent visit to my hometown by the Yangtze River in eastern China, relatives welcomed me, as ever, with a feast: steamed perch and hairy crab, deep-fried river shrimp — and braised pork. My 84-year-old father made sure to serve pork, even though it was now twice as expensive as the year before. This time, he didn’t get the meat from my brother, who until this fall had been the village’s largest pork producer: All 150 pigs on my brother’s farm had either died or been culled because of African swine fever.

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Gangs are spreading swine flu by drone to attempt to extort farmers into selling their stock for well below market prices.  So there is that, too.

New Chinese Respiratory Virus Outbreak Update

China will step up efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays as a rise in confirmed cases fanned fears the virus could spread to other countries.

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Wuhan’s health authority confirmed earlier on Sunday 17 more cases of the virus in the city, bringing the total number of known patients there to 62.

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Japan has confirmed its first case of infection from a newly-identified coronavirus that has killed one person and infected at least 40 more in China, as well as prompting a travel alert from the U.S. State Department.

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An outbreak of a new coronavirus in China has spread to more cities, Chinese authorities said on Monday, as the number of patients tripled and a third person died, stoking concerns about the containment of the virus.

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Nature states the new virus needs China to cooperate internationally.

Science notes folks are alarmed.

South Korea Reports Sixth Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Virus Death, 87 Infections, 2300 Quarantined

South Korea recorded its sixth death and biggest single day jump in Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) infections on Monday, with 23 new cases in the largest outbreak of the potentially deadly virus outside Saudi Arabia.

From just four cases two weeks ago, the total number of infections now stands at 87, including six people who have died.

The latest fatality was a man in his 80s who had been diagnosed in Daejeon, 140 kilometres south of Seoul, and died in hospital on Monday morning, local officials said.

The outbreak has triggered widespread public concern in South Korea, with 2,300 people placed under quarantine orders and nearly 1,900 schools -- mostly in Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi province -- closed down.

Among the 23 new cases, 17 were infected at the Samsung Medical Centre in southern Seoul, the health ministry said.

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Bill Gates Worries About the Next Epidemic

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is Back

Infectious disease watchers are again wondering what is going on in Saudi Arabia. Since the beginning of February the Saudis have reported 52 cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome—better known as MERS; 40 have come to light in the past week or so alone. Since the disease first hit the world’s radar in September 2012 only two months have racked up more cases than this one has. They were April and May 2014, when Saudi Arabia had rampant MERS outbreaks in several hospitals.

An expert delegation from the United Nation’s human and animal health agencies began a three-day mission to the Arabian Peninsula’s geographically largest country Wednesday, trying to get to the bottom of why MERS cases are soaring.

This is the time of year in which the number of MERS cases has climbed in the past, although not enough time has elapsed to make clear whether that pattern will continue. In the past two springs large hospital outbreaks in Saudi Arabia have certainly created the appearance of a high season for MERS transmission, which some scientists believe exists and is linked to the birth and weaning of young camels. The animals are known to be susceptible to the virus and can transmit it to people. Like young children who infect the adults around them with colds and flu, juvenile camels are thought to drive the spread of this virus among camel herds and out into the human population. Then someone becomes sick enough to require hospitalization and the infection spreads.

But even if there is a seasonal component to MERS, a spring surge has never before started this early in the year. By comparison, in the past two Februaries fewer than 10 cases were reported. "Of course we don't have 10, 20 years’ history to be able to predict any seasonal patterns,’’ says Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety expert who is the World Health Organization’s point person for MERS. “But just based on the last couple of years, the couple of seasons we've come through, it's not a good start."

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Could Ebola Reaching Central America or Caribbean Trigger a Mass Emigration?

The head of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) warned an Ebola outbreak in Central America or the Caribbean could trigger a mass migration to the U.S. of people fleeing the disease and implied established Central American illegal trafficking networks could introduce the infected into the U.S., during remarks at a Tuesday panel on security issue in the Western Hemisphere at the National Defense University.

“If it comes to the Western Hemisphere, the countries that we’re talking about have almost no ability to deal with it — particularly in Haiti and Central America,” SOUTHCOM Commander, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, said in response to a question of his near term concerns in the region.
“It will make the 68,000 unaccompanied minors look like a small problem.”

An Ebola outbreak could encourage the poor and increasingly desperate populations in Central American countries — like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — to leave in droves.

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Ebola has Reached the United States

The United States has one confirmed case of Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, marking the first domestic appearance of the deadly virus that has ravaged swaths of continental Africa.

The as-yet unidentified patient is located in Dallas, officials say, effectively confirming a statement issued on Monday by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. The organization said that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in "strict isolation" due to the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.

In a press conference, CDC Director Tom Frieden said the patient in question had been traveling in Liberia, where he may have contracted the disease. He returned to the United States on the 20th of September, after which he sought care. Frieden attempted to assuage concerns about Ebola's contagious effect, saying that the virus was only spread through direct contact, and was not airborne. He vowed that officials would contain a potential spread.

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Ebola Outbreak Crosses 1900 Deaths, Worsening

More than 1,900 people have died in the world's worst outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, marking a major acceleration in fatalities from just over 1,500 last week.

Margaret Chan told a news conference in Washington that 3,500 confirmed or probable cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as of this week. The death toll from this outbreak is now higher than in all the previous epidemics since the disease was first detected in 1976.

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Vaccine Resistant Polio Virus has Emerged in Africa

The poliovirus strain that caused an outbreak in the Republic of the Congo in 2010 is able to resist the immune responses generated by a commonly used vaccine. The finding could explain why the outbreak, which killed nearly half of the 445 people infected, was so severe.

Christian Drosten at the University of Bonn Medical Centre in Germany and his colleagues analysed the virus strain responsible for the outbreak. They found a combination of two mutations, both in the proteins of the strain's 'coat', which make it harder for certain antibodies to stick to the virus. People who died in this outbreak had been vaccinated in the past, but people who were freshly re-vaccinated could fight off the virus.

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Tuberculosis was in PreColumbian Americas

Grade school history lessons often have it that American Indians largely were wiped out by diseases such as whooping cough, chicken pox, influenza and tuberculosis brought to the New World by European explorers.

One report says, while estimates vary, about 20 million people lived in the Americas shortly before Europeans arrived, and roughly 95 percent of them were killed by European diseases.

But new research led by anthropological geneticists Anne Stone of Arizona State University and Johannes Krause of the University of Tubingen in Germany indicates the diagnosis of what devastated American Indian populations is a little more complicated, particularly when it comes to tuberculosis.

Their study of pre-Columbian Mycobacterial tuberculosis genomes published today in the journal Nature reveals that tuberculosis may have had a hand in American Indian deaths prior to the influx of European diseases. The research concludes seals and sea lions likely brought the disease to South America and spread it to people there long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.

"What we found was really surprising," said Stone, referring to her team's examination of tuberculosis DNA from roughly 1,000-year-old human skeletons found in Peru that produced the discovery.

The results, the researchers write, provide unequivocal evidence that a member of the M. tuberculosis complex caused human disease in the pre-contact New World.

"Skeletal evidence of tuberculosis is present in the archaeological records in both the Old World and New World," said Elizabeth Tran, Biological Anthropology program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences.

"The source of tuberculosis in the New World long has been a question for researchers. This paper provides strong evidence that marine mammals may have been the likely culprits, bringing tuberculosis to South America long before Europeans arrived there."

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Ebola Case in Canada?

A Canadian hospital put a patient in isolation after he arrived in the country from Nigeria with symptoms of fever and flu -- possible signs he is infected with Ebola -- local media said.

Nigeria is one of several countries in West Africa that has had confirmed cases of Ebola, in the world's largest ever outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has seen nearly 1,000 deaths and more than 1,700 people infected since the beginning of the year.

A doctor at the Brampton, Ontario hospital, near Toronto, said on Friday the patient had a fever and other symptoms similar to those seen in Ebola cases, the news channel CP24 said.

Authorities decided to place him in isolation as a precaution, though there has been no official diagnosis and there are multiple diseases that could have caused his symptoms, stressed Eileen de Villa, an official with the region's Public Health office, according to CTV news.

In addition to quarantining the patient, the hospital also enacted other strict precautionary measures, she said.

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Ebola Epidemic Spreads, Worsens

As the Ebola virus continues its deadly march through West Africa, keeping track of developments can be a challenge. Here's a roundup of the latest news this week:

The Toll

The World Health Organization updated figures Wednesday. The total number of cases — including those considered confirmed, probable or suspected — now stands at 1,711. This includes 932 deaths.

To put that into perspective: Until this year, the world had recorded 1,640 deaths from Ebola since the virus was discovered in 1976. Now more than a third of all people known to have died from the virus, in history, have died in the current outbreak.

There's also worrisome evidence that the outbreak's strength is growing. More than 100 of the cases this year, or about 6 percent of the total, were reported between Saturday and Monday. And 20 percent of all cases were reported over the last week, from Monday, July 28 through Monday, August 4.

The Locations

Nearly all cases have been in the three West African countries at the epicenter of the crisis: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. New cases have been roughly divided between the latter two.

But in another alarming development, the WHO is now nine cases in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has also reported a second death from Ebola — a nurse who treated the first person to die there, a Liberian-American man, named Patrick Sawyer.

Sawyer apparently contracted Ebola in Liberia and then boarded a plane for Nigeria's capital, Lagos, a city with more than 20 million people. He died soon after in a Lagos hospital.

Nigerian officials had initially stated that Sawyer was identified as a possible Ebola patient at the airport and immediately isolated. But the Lagos state health commissioner conceded Tuesday that, in fact, more than 24 hours had passed before hospital staff recognized Sawyer might have Ebola and took precautionary measures, the Associated Press Wednesday.

Five other people who came into contact with Sawyer are now sick with Ebola, Nigerian officials added. And they're following up with others who were exposed to Sawyer.

Saudi Arabia is also testing for a possible first case: a Saudi man who fell ill after returning from Sierra Leone, Reuters . He died Wednesday.

Liberia's Minister of Internal Affairs said a Liberian man died of Ebola in Morocco last month. However, the Moroccan government has that the man died of a heart attack, and that tests confirmed he never had Ebola.

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CDC Reassures Ebola Outbreak 'not in th Cards' for USA

International health experts are preparing to “surge” into West Africa to fight the raging outbreak of Ebola virus, and say they are confident they can keep it from spreading to countries like the United States and eventually stamp it out.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped up a travel alert for West Africa Thursday, saying nonessential people should put off travel there for now. But CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said that was more to keep people out of the way of emergency work than to prevent the spread of Ebola.

“It is not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S. That is not in the cards,” Frieden told reporters on a conference call. “We are not telling people who are essential to leave.”

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California Arrest Warrant Issued for Eduardo Rosas Cruz: Carrier of Highly Infectious, Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Prosecutors in California have obtained an arrest warrant for a tuberculosis patient who they say is contagious and has refused treatment.

Deputy District Attorney Stephen Taylor said Thursday that police are looking for 25-year-old Eduardo Rosas Cruz, a transient who comes from a part of Mexico known for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis spreads through the air when infected people cough, sneeze, or otherwise expel air from their lungs. The disease can be deadly.

Prosecutors say Rosas Cruz was diagnosed in March when he went to the hospital for treatment of a severe cough. He was supposed to stay in a motel room, where a health worker would deliver his medication and watch him take it. But prosecutors say he took off.

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Top Sierra Leone Doctor Fighting Ebola Contracts Disease After 3 Nurses Die

The head doctor fighting the deadly tropical virus Ebola in Sierra Leone has himself caught the disease, the government said.

The 39-year-old Sheik Umar Khan, hailed as a "national hero" by the health ministry, was leading the fight to control an outbreak that has killed 206 people in the West African country. Ebola kills up to 90 percent of those infected and there is no cure or vaccine.

Across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, more than 600 people have died from the illness, according to the World Health Organisation, placing great strain on the health systems of some of Africa's poorest countries.

Khan, a Sierra Leonean virologist credited with treating more than 100 Ebola victims, has been transferred to a treatment ward run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, according to the statement released late on Tuesday by the president's office.

Health Minister Miatta Kargbo called Khan a national hero and said she would "do anything and everything in my power to ensure he survives".

Khan told Reuters in late June that he was worried about contracting Ebola. "I am afraid for my life, I must say, because I cherish my life," he said in an interview, showing no signs of ill health at the time.

"Health workers are prone to the disease because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by disease. Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk."

Three days ago, three nurses working in the same Ebola treatment centre alongside Khan died from the disease.

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Middle East Respiratory Syndrome may be Airborne

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, better known as MERS, may be an airborne virus, according to an observation paper published Tuesday in the journal mBio.

There have been 836 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS infection since its first appearance in 2012, according to the latest numbers provided by the World Health Organization. At least 288 related deaths have officially been reported to the WHO.

Scientists are still trying to figure out how the deadly virus is transmitted.

Researchers from King Fahd Medical Research Center in Saudi Arabia collected three air samples from a camel barn. Previously, they had found MERS in a camel from that barn and in its infected owner, who later died from the condition. After analyzing the air sample, the scientists found one strain of MERS RNA, the viral genome.

Interestingly, the barn air tested positive for MERS on the exact same day that one of the nine camels in the barn tested positive for MERS. Also, the virus from the air sample was identical to the virus found in nasal samples from the infected camel and its owner.

"These data show evidence for the presence of the airborne MERS in the same barn that was owned by the patient and sheltered the infected camels," the study authors write.

But does that mean MERS is easily transmitted through the air?

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At least 288 have died and 834 people have been infected with the MERS virus.

Ebola Outbreak Rages on With Over 567 Cases & 350 Deaths

The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has hit "unprecedented" proportions, according to relief workers on the ground.

"The epidemic is out of control," Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement.

There have been 567 cases and 350 deaths since the epidemic began in March, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.

In April, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled to Conakry, Guinea, to report on what was being done to treat patients and contain the outbreak.

"It took only moments to feel the impact of what was happening here," Gupta wrote after landing in Conakry. "There is a lot we know about Ebola, and it scares us almost as much as what we don't know."

Ebola outbreaks usually are confined to remote areas, making it easier to contain. But this outbreak is different; patients have been identified in 60 locations in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Officials believe the wide footprint of this outbreak is partly because of the close proximity between the jungle where the virus was first identified and cities such as Conakry. The capital in Guinea has a population of 2 million and an international airport.

People are traveling without realizing they're carrying the deadly virus. It can take between two and 21 days after exposure for someone to feel sick.

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First MERS Case Reported From Bangladesh

Bangladesh on Sunday reported its first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection in a man returning from the United States through Abu Dhabi.

The man, 53, was being treated in hospital, said Mahmudur Rahman, of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.

"Most probably, he contacted the virus while he was in Abu Dhabi in transit on his way back from the United States," Rahman told Reuters.

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