From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,sci.med
Subject: Re: Mystery bug could kill millions
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 17:13:32 -0800
Message-ID: <b58g7r$fdh$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

"Habshi" <habshi@anony.com> wrote in message
news:iknc7v8praucvo2k4ftne3l1tvlqmna7km@4ax.com...

> This is the second month of the Government campaign that started in
> February. Five people were confirmed dead then and very quickly there
> was a suppression of information. China stopped counting the toll at 305
> infected last month,


Complete nonsense. You're confusing the new Hong Kong Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome "SARS" with the Guangdong
pneumonia, which ended lasted from November to February, and
ended in February because the Chinese figured out what it
was (Clamydia) and started treating it as such.

Guangdong provence surrounds the peninsula which contains
Hong Kong. However, Guangdong is not backwoods China. It has
the Pearl River industrial complex, Shenzheng, and a lot of
other stuff. It has HIV, major airports, tourists, and all
the ills of the Western world. The present variety of the
very infectious Hong Kong flu hasn't been banging around
Guangdong for 4 months, and then suddenly jumped all around
the world on jets, in just 2 weeks. This new stuff in Hong
Kong is something completely different.  Doubtless it is
some new variety of flu, just in from animals in the REAL
Chinese countryside, and just hitting its first major
cities, from which it's out on jets, and there you are.

SBH


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From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,sci.med
Subject: Re: Mystery bug could kill millions
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:05:49 -0800
Message-ID: <b5dhgb$v8g$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

"Mark London" <mrl@psfc.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:20MAR03.15594524@psfc.mit.edu...
> In a previous article, "Steve Harris"
<sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote:
> >Complete nonsense. You're confusing the new Hong Kong Severe Acute
> >Respiratory Syndrome "SARS" with the Guangdong pneumonia, which ended
> >lasted from November to February, and ended in February because the
> >Chinese figured out what it was (Clamydia) and started treating it as
> >such.
>
> Guess further information is proving you wrong, especially now that they
> are tracing the Hong Kong virus to a Chinese professor.


Comment:

None of this proves me wrong. The virus, now thought to be a
paramyxovirus (akin to human parainfluenzas, which are not
related to influenzas) surely came from some animal in the
mainland somewhere. Maybe even in Guangdong. But this does
not mean the Hong Kong bug is Guangdong pneumonia, which
killed only 5 people over 4 months. This new stuff is far
worse.


> http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/35294/1/.html
>
> Regarding Chlamydia:
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993515
>
>   Chlamydia was implicated via lung x-rays in two deaths in the Chinese
>   outbreak. However, Simpson said the Chinese authorities were now
>   questioning this conclusion.
>   
>   He said: "They now wonder whether that is correct. An awful lot of the
>   population would test positive anyway if you just did a random
>   Chlamydia test."

It was identified as Clamydia by microscopy of tissue
specimens, not X-rays or a blood antibody test. Your
reporter is flatly wrong in the facts. And again, Guangdong
pneumonia responded to Clamydial antibiotics, which the new
SARS does not.



>WHO experts are now flying out to China to help the authorities review
>  their evidence.

Comment:

That's nice. So?

Don't believe everything you read. What makes you think the
average journalist knows a paramyxovirus from his rear end?
Journalists can't even get basic facts right-- for example
the article you refer me to says:


>It started with the 64-year-old mainland professor, who was
very ill with pneumonia when he checked in. He died the next
day in hospital.The virus then fatally hit an American
businessman who travelled from Hanoi and a Canadian hotel
guest.<<

Comment: Actually, the American businessman traveled TO
Hanoi from Shanghai, with a stopover at Hong Kong, where he
obviously picked up the illness at the hotel. Only later
after becoming ill in Vietnam was he airlifted back to Hong
Kong, where he died. If this man is not the true index case,
that only means the virus isn't from Shanghai. It may well
be from Kowloon in Guangdong, but if it is, it's very
recently emerged in a few weeks, not months. This changes
nothing I've said.

SBH
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From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,sci.med
Subject: Re: Mystery bug could kill millions
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 16:14:15 -0800
Message-ID: <b5g9t7$mi8$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net>

"Mark London" <mrl@psfc.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:21MAR03.01385131@psfc.mit.edu...
> In a previous article, "Steve Harris"
> <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote:
> >None of this proves me wrong. The virus, now thought to be a
> >paramyxovirus (akin to human parainfluenzas, which are not related to
> >influenzas) surely came from some animal in the mainland somewhere.
> >Maybe even in Guangdong. But this does not mean the Hong Kong bug is
> >Guangdong pneumonia, which killed only 5 people over 4 months. This new
> >stuff is far worse.
>
> Well, you better get on the phone to everyone else in the world, because
> more and more people are reporting the exact opposite:
>
> http://edition.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/03/20/mystery.virus.int/
>
> Deadly virus links probed
>
> Friday, March 21, 2003 Posted: 0025 GMT ( 8:25 AM HKT)
>
> HONG KONG, China -- Links are firming between the deadly flu-like
> illness that has killed as many as 10 people in recent days to an
> earlier outbreak in China's southern Guangdong province.
> 
> More than 300 people are now suspected to be infected with severe acute
> respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the majority of those from Hong Kong,
> where six people have now died.
> 
> Hong Kong Health Minister Yeoh Eng-kiong told Reuters Thursday there
> were now 173 people sick in Hong Kong, 165 of them in a critical
> condition.
> 
> Health officials in Hong Kong have now traced more than 80 percent of
> the current cases to a single doctor who had treated patients in
> Guangdong -- which neighbors Hong Kong -- before becoming ill himself
> and dying.

Comment:

Well, if he was a doctor in Guangdong I'm not surprised he
treated *patients* in Guangdong. The question is whether any
of these had the atypical Guangdong pneumonia which had been
reported extinct about Feb 20.

What is it about this simple concept you don't understand?
If the Hong Kong flu with its proven infectivity, high
morbility, and no available treatment in mainland China had
been raging in the cities of Southern China since November,
we'd have millions with it by now, not a few hundred. Right
now we have about as many people with it from 2 weeks in
Hong Kong as the entire outbreak in Guangdong in 4 months.

Why should I get on the phone to educate one more clueless
reporter? Most of them have no more sense about infectious
disease than you do.

SBH
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Spammers are not welcome. I welcome email
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From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,sci.med
Subject: Re: Mystery bug could kill millions
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 18:04:57 -0800
Message-ID: <b5ggca$9ch$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

"Mark London" <mrl@psfc.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:22MAR03.00592689@psfc.mit.edu...

> This is all assuming that the original reports of only 5 dying is true.
> So we have to trust China's government, or we have look at the fact that
> there was an extremely rare coincidence that a Dr. from this same area
> where an outbreak just occurred, is the source of this new totally
> different outbreak, which occurred literally weeks apart from each
> other.


We don't have to trust anybody. All we have to trust are the
numbers coming out of Hong Kong suggesting a doubling time
of around 3 days for this. One guy in a large city in
Guangdong has this in November, and 4 month later, how many
Chinese dead?  You do the math.

Now, how has the government hidden that kind of death rate?


> Or, perhaps, while trying to investigate this Chinese outbreak, that
> they were comparing with samples of other worse viruses, and somehow
> contimated people with the samples.  Is this possible?


Possible, but you still have to explain where the mainland
plague went.


> Or perhaps it's like the Andromeda Strain, and it mutated after coming
> from China!


Possible, but it would have had to mutate in infectivity and
pathogenicity, simultaneously. These are two very different
properties, and are independent. I don't believe it.


>
> Or, perhaps, the Chinese were much better at treating patients.  Maybe
> their herbal remedies do work?

Yeah, that's *real* likely.

Not.

SBH
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Spammers are not welcome. I welcome email
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From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,sci.med
Subject: Re: Mystery bug could kill millions
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 14:46:06 -0800
Message-ID: <b5ip7a$8ga$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

"Mark London" <mrl@psfc.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:22MAR03.13160534@psfc.mit.edu...
> In a previous article, mrl@psfc.mit.edu (Mark London) wrote:
> >>>Or perhaps it's like the Andromeda Strain, and it mutated after
> >>>coming from China!
>
> Gee, maybe I was right after all:
>
> Winnipeg scientists believe they have discovered the virus responsible
> for the mysterious illness that has killed 10 people, including two
> Canadians.
> 
> But identifying the virus -- which has actually been known to scientists
> for 50 years -- doesn't answer why it has suddenly turned from its
> normal mild form into a potential killer responsible for severe acute
> respiratory syndrome (SARS).
> 
> "We still need to find out why the cases have been so severe," said Dr.
> Frank Plummer, scientific director of the Canadian Science Centre for
> Human and Animal Health. "There could be interaction between this agent
> and another, we don't know for sure. That's something we're looking
> into."
> 
> The virus, known as human metapneumovirus, normally causes cold and
> flu-like symptoms and is responsible for about 15% of all respiratory
> illnesses not caused by colds or other common ailments. The virus was
> present in six of the eight samples taken from the Canadians who
> developed SARS.


COMMENT

None of which means this is a new mutation of a virus which
has been in humans for a while-- it still very well could be
a new viral transmission from a Chinese animal, in this case
perhaps a duck.

Metapneumoviruses are members of the paramyxovirus family,
and are quite similar to respiratory syncycial viruses and
human parainfluenza viruses. The closest cousin to human
metapneumovirus is actually the Avian metapneumovirus type
C, which is found in turkeys. As noted, paramyxoviruses are
well known for jumping between species, and when they do,
they are especially severe. I've not aware of any report of
a zoonosis (animal to human infection) involving
specifically metapneumovirus, but on the other hand, human
metapneumoviruses (which are also isolatable from Asian
monkeys) are a relatively new addition to the crop of known
human respiratory viruses, and not much is yet known about
them. It's a fair bet that they jump species just like most
other viruses in their larger family of paramyxoviridae are
known to do.

A general rule is that viruses which have been in the host a
long time, are not especially virulent-- the common cold and
known metapneumoviruses are good examples. Viruses don't
want to kill the host or even make the host very ill (too
ill to be us and about and spreading the virus). Evolution
eventually selects for indolent strains of all contagious
diseases.

Killer viruses are generally not mutations or formerly
indolent human viruses, but almost always zoonoses-- bugs
that have newly jumped, and aren't in their proper or former
animal hosts. The yearly new flu epidemics are examples, and
Ebola's another. As also AIDS/HIV (which is from chimps
where it does no harm). But there are many others which are
not known to the public-- for example Monkey B virus, a
herpes virus which turns the brains of humans and African
monkeys reliably into jelly in 2 weeks, but is nothing but a
cold sore disease in its normal Asian monkey hosts
(macaques, rhesus, etc).

The Hong Kong bug is simply too virulent to be anything but
very new to humans. Doubtless it's from a Chinese animal,
where all the other new and severe respiratory viruses come
from (in rural china, humans live intimately with pigs and
ducks and other fowl). Probably known human
metapneumoviruses are from animals also, but they made the
jump to humans so long ago that today they cause nothing
more than annoying "respiratory crud" illness.

Here's my official guess: the Hong Kong bug will eventually
go down as being the first metapneumovirus proven to be a
zoonosis. And its normal host will be a Chinese bird.

SBH
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From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: "U.S. researchers confirm SARS virus"
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:51:15 -0700
Message-ID: <b782bk$ua2$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net>

> >"Mike Yared" <myared@erols.com> wrote in message
> >news:b77ma5$b06$1@bob.news.rcn.net...
> >> U.S. researchers confirm SARS virus
> >> U.S. scientists have identified the virus of a deadly respiratory
> >> illness that has sickened nearly 3,000 people worldwide and prompted
> >> travel bans, forced quarantines and upended
> >> the Asian economy.
> >> http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030411-5521458.htm



Interesting.  There are lots of coronaviruses of animals,
most of them gut viruses (feline infectious peritonitis
being the most famous one that pet owners know), but a few
respiratory viruses in pigs, turkeys, and chickens.

The coronavirus that causes bronchitis in chickens is
paricularly interesting, not only because of its similar
clinical nature to SARS, but also because it is has a
interaction with mycoplasma, with the combination of
diseases being much worse than either alone. Perhaps we're
seeing that kind of thing now with people. With one agent
being the coronavirus, and the other being mycoplasma, or
perhaps even the clamydia which was associated with the much
more indolent Guangdong pre-epidemic of Nov-Feb on the
mainland near Hong Kong.

SBH