NoCarrier

Scientists detect signs of deadlier SARS virus

HONG KONG - A more virulent form of SARS may be killing the young and healthy in one part of Hong Kong, a group of scientists said on Wednesday.


Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) mostly takes the lives of the elderly and those already sick, but since Saturday there have been more deaths reported among younger people in Hong Kong, which has been worst affected by the disease after mainland China.


The scientists from the University of Hong Kong offered no firm proof of the existence of a deadlier form of the SARS virus, and research teams in Canada and the United States have not reached similar conclusions.


Their findings are based on the condition of patients from the Amoy Gardens housing estate.


Microbiology professor Yuen Kwok-yung said the team believed the virus "has become slightly more virulent" in Amoy cases.


"Even medical staff infected by the Amoy Gardens victims are more severely ill. So it may have to do with the virus," he told reporters.


The scientists said a quarter of 1,232 people infected in Hong Kong were from Amoy Gardens. These victims were more ill than others, displayed slightly different symptoms and did not respond as well to a cocktail of drugs.


"These lead us to believe that maybe the virus itself has changed," said Yuen.


Twenty percent of Amoy victims needed intensive care, compared with only about 10 percent of other SARS patients in Hong Kong, he said.


SARS has killed 56 people in Hong Kong -- seven from Amoy Gardens. Most who died were old or already chronically sick.


Some of the younger people who died were admitted to hospital only at a later stage of the disease, and a high-profile case was a pregnant woman who died after doctors saved her baby by caesarian section.


Authorities are still trying to establish how the virus could have infected more than 320 residents in Amoy Gardens. Government officials have made a link to an infected kidney patient who visited his brother there.


The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has said some patients -- so-called "super-spreaders" -- pass the disease more easily.


"Perhaps some patients sneeze more, or have more virus in their nasal passages, or are infected with a more virulent strain... We wish we knew why," Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC, said on Tuesday.


Medical experts say sewage in Amoy Gardens may be to blame. Fecal particles carrying the virus have been found on kitchen sinks and toilet seats.


Sixty percent of Amoy victims also suffer from diarrhea, which causes dehydration and is an added complication for the sick, compared with only 20 percent of other Hong Kong SARS victims, said David Hui, a doctor caring for patients.


"The first victims were infected through the respiratory tract, so they have fever, headache and 20 percent had diarrhea. But the infections at Amoy's were oral-fecal, so they have diarrhea," Hui told Reuters.
Reuters/abs-cbnNEWS.com

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12clicks

time to quarantine hong kong until they cure it.

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NoCarrier

It's going to take at least a couple of years before a vaccine is availble.

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kmanrox

fuck the bullshit, when i go back to the USA again i am going thru europe as the trans pacific usually stop in singapore or hkk... although i can stop in japan, but that's a little too close for comfort, and you can bet your ass i'll be wearing a medical mask regardless the route...

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NoCarrier

English please?

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- Jesus Christ -

What I'm still wondering is if an immunity is built up after somone gets the virus once.... If so, it means a vaccine is more likely to be developed soon.

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Amen

funkmaster

... isn´t magic johnson immune to AIDS ??

12clicks

so, what's your point?

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Caroline

is anyone certian if it really showed up in ft. lauderdale?

twistyneck

Let's hope that this is the big one, the Great Cleansing that we so desperately need.

Marcus

Thats so fucked. Even working from home and not going out too much and having things delivered, I think SARS lives on things for 10 hours, on your mail, on your food deliveries, on atm machines, flying around in the air.

NoCarrier

Well, they can't quarantine asians for years. That was my point.

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Phoenix

Those masks are useless...i used to work in a chemicl factory for Bayer wheni was going to school


unless you change those masks constantly...this is what happens..you exhale...moisture which is negativel charged gets caught in the cloth...after about half an hour to an hour, you will have more crap sticking to the mask then anywhere else

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TheFLY

Why is this a problem in Asia but not in the USA...? Does this virus like Asian DNA or something? Sounds fishy...

twistyneck

SARS was engineered by the CIA to wipe out the Asians. Common knowledge dude. There's just too fucking many of them.

NoCarrier

HAHAHA.. Man, that was funny.

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