Post #228,272
10/5/05 8:00:11 PM
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Hantavirus?
SARS?
There are plenty of nasty bugs out there that are just waiting to hitch a ride on our hands/skin.
My worry is that with the use of so many "anti-bacterial" products, we are hastening the process of adaptation. Super bugs are already posing a threat.
What a world, what a world.
Amy
Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
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Post #228,276
10/5/05 8:28:19 PM
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All we need for a pandemic
1. High transmission rate with casual contact.
2. Significant period of infectousness before onset of definitive symptoms.
3. Non-trivial rate of mortality in healthy adults.
AIDS had #2, used to have #3, but failed on #1.
Most flu strains have #1 and #2, but lack #3.
Ebola has #1 and #3, but failed on #2. It kills too quickly.
Same for Necrotizing fasciitis: symptoms appear within 24 hours.
Lyme disease was thought to have #1, but limited to rural areas, and turned out not to have #3.
West Nile Virus failed on #3.
SARS apparently had #1 and #2, but #3 wasn't nearly what people feared.
So what's most likely to hit the trifecta: a flu strain with higher mortality, or a slower-killing version of ebola or necrotizing fasciitis?
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #228,279
10/5/05 8:33:22 PM
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Ewwwww!
Now would be a good time to aquire OCD with the hand-washing.
Peace (V on a gloved hand)
Amy
Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
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Post #228,281
10/5/05 8:38:38 PM
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SARS had a plenty high fatality rate
About 10%. If a billion people caught it, that would be 100 million dead. Possibly more, because that's the fatality rate with good medical care. If the medical system got overwhelmed, I'd expect more people to die.
What caused SARS to fizzle is that an aggressive quarantine and contact tracing effort managed to stop it before it infected more than a few thousand people.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #228,282
10/5/05 8:41:43 PM
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Once the Chinese recognized it
the quarantines and quick reaction of the other affected countries were able to deal with it effectively.
It could have been much, much worse had the Chinese spent another month hiding from the issue.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #228,518
10/6/05 8:04:44 PM
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They probably would have if they could have, but they
couldn't after it appeared in Toronto with a clear vector back to Guangdong.
I was here; it broke in Canada long before the Chinese gov't acknowledged its existence.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #228,283
10/5/05 8:48:31 PM
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Was that total, or high-risk?
What I'm asking is: did 10% of the healthy adults who caught it die, even with treatment? I had assumed the 10% rate was for all known cases, which typically consists of higher rates among children and the elderly.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #228,285
10/5/05 9:04:30 PM
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That was 10% of all known cases
In terms of projecting probable fatalities from X people catching it, that's the right figure to look at.
In terms of evaluating your personal risk, it is the wrong figure.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #228,418
10/6/05 12:56:36 PM
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For those who are interested
I got this email today from Consumer's Union. I am quite interested since I contracted a gasto-bug while tending to hubster in the hospital. It took me nearly three days to recover from it. Also, my sister-in-law nearly died from a staph infection after her C-section four years ago.
I'm glad to see that someone is taking a serious look at hospital pathogens.
I urge everyone to sign the petition.
[link|http://cu.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=SHI_petitionyourhospital&s_dckid=13580094|http://cu.convio.net...&s_dckid=13580094]
Peace,
Amy
Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
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Post #228,555
10/6/05 11:57:37 PM
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Re: For those who are interested
It was common knowledge decades ago (I thought), the risks of going into most any large metro hospital.. not only re the much higher chance of sharing air/surfaces with really Interesting maladies, but just for the fact that sterilization never reaches 100.0% (outside of movies with silos having an A-bomb at the base.)
Of course in certain emergencies - you do what you must.
But as for any surgery (and especially - elective) - this chimera hangs over everyone, but especially anyone who has been brought up in the A-septic household: antibiotic sprayed, slathered on every small scratch. All those ads on Tee Vee of the hospital-white kitchen; Mom standing over little Kevin with a treated towel - to restore that floor to autoclave-freshness suggest to me:
Maybe MDs are still giving in to "Ask Your Doctor if LiquiLobotomy is the Right medication to fix *your* mood disorder!" - as they've been alleged to yield often to the demands, "I want a shot of ___cillin Now!" (even for a bad cold)?
Dunno - rarely see either MD/hospital insides; maybe just the luck of the genes.
If people generally - today? don't understand about the built-in risk of all these Wonder Drugs\ufffd [and that they are for Emergency last resort], after so many A-B-C plain-English lectures about how mutations develop..?
Whacha gonna do? I guess this petition makes clear what you Don't do - suppress the old precautions along with the new results of having done that. Sounds as if there are Medico-MBAs completely in charge. (How's That for scary?)
Ain't capitalism fun - in both medicine Tee Vee ads and political propaganda [with music]?
..be Moderately afraid
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Post #228,594
10/7/05 8:00:08 AM
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MRSA seems to be a bigger deal in the UK than in the USA.
[link|http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/Aresist/ha_mrsa.htm|Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus]: MRSA is a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics. These antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. Staph infections, including MRSA, occur most frequently among persons in hospitals and health care facilities (such as nursing homes and dialysis centers) who have weakened immune systems. My father in law became [link|http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/955139831.html|colonized] with MRSA very shortly after receiving a tracheostomy at a local hospital. Does everyone who is exposed to MRSA become infected?
No. Some individuals who are exposed to MRSA become "colonized" which means that the bacteria are present, growing and multiply without observable signs of disease. MRSA colonization occurs on the skin surface, in the nasal passage, in the sputum or in the urine. Other individuals who are exposed to MRSA never become colonized. MRSA colonization may precede or lead to infection in persons with weakened immune systems. However, persons who get MRSA infections are usually already very ill from other medical conditions. Apparently, it's quite common for even healthy people to be colonized with MRSA. The problem is, if an elderly person becomes colonized with it, then very few nursing homes will accept them as a patient - even for temporary rehabilitation stays. And those that will accept a patient with MRSA often are the ones that provide the lowest quality care. :-( Combating MRSA (aka the "superbug") seems to get much more press in the UK than in the USA. It's been a [link|http://society.guardian.co.uk/mrsa/story/0,15825,1548847,00.html|political issue there] as well. From what I saw in my frequent visits to see my FIL at the hospital, I think infections like MRSA will be with us for a long time. Too many of the staff are too cavalier about cleanliness procedures - e.g. I don't think that the equipment or oxygen/vacuum valves on the walls was ever cleaned even though they pick up stuff from contaminated gloves... They go through the motions of requiring visitors to wear gowns and gloves, but then don't think about how they can transfer infectious agents themselves. Just as a single person can cause a huge traffic backup, it only takes one person who isn't careful to spread infection through a hospital (or several, if it's a physician making rounds). And there's the cleaning, laundry, food delivery staff to consider too... We probably need hospitals with voice-activated equipment so that pathogens cannot easily be transferred by contact. But I don't think we'll have antigravity beds and magical fabrics and other materials that eliminate patient contact any time soon. :-( (There's a huge need for things like this, but it would bankrupt the country before the benefits began to pay off.) My feeling is that one should always avoid hospitals whenever possible. People who say that one goes to a hospital to die are unfortunately too often right. :-( Cheers, Scott.
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Post #228,658
10/7/05 5:23:20 PM
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Thou sayest: bottom line, indeed :-/
I'll go in for the occasional blood-test for whatever. I watch the seal being broken on the needle/syringe AND the donning of a new pair of gloves The 'Right' Way, etc.
As the guy who fell out of the CIEIO's office on the 66th floor said,
while passing the 33rd -
I'm doing fine.. so far.
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