Mystery illness kills at least 17 Chinese – Boston.com – Asia – News — This can;t be good. Where is the CSI team when you need them?
BEIJING –An unidentified illness has killed 17 farmers and sickened 41 in southwestern China after they butchered sick pigs or sheep, China’s official news agency said Sunday.
Those affected had symptoms including high fever, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and “became comatose later with bruises under the skin,” Xinhua news agency said.
Over the past four weeks, 58 people from areas around the cities of Ziyang and Neijiang in China’s southwestern Sichuan province were hospitalized with such symptoms, Xinhua said.
Seventeen of those hospitalized have died, while 12 are in critical condition, 27 are stable and two have recovered, it said.
Possible H5N1 connections cited here
The above comments are from an AP story on the mysterious deaths of farmers in several villages near Ziyang in Sichuan province southeast of Chengdu. The wire report describes 20 patients with symptoms. Nine have died and 6 more are in critical condition. Only one patient ahs been discharged. The patients had been admitted between June 24 and July 21, so the delay in a diagnosis is cause for concern. Earlier reports also describe patients as being dizzy which lead to coma in some cases. These descriptions sound similar to a t least one death in Thailand after slaughtering a wild boar in May. There was no diagnosis in that cluster of cases either.
And then there is this! Indonesia panic over infected pigs.
Indonesia destroys pigs in effort to halt bird flu
MONDAY, JULY 25, 2005
TANGERANG, Indonesia Indonesia on Sunday started destroying pigs in its effort to contain the rapid spread of bird flu, which has killed at least 57 people across Asia and devastated poultry stocks.Plans to slaughter 200 swine, however, were sharply reduced as the authorities wrangled over the best way to battle the deadly disease.
Eighteen pigs that tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus were killed on a farm in Tangerang, about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, west of Jakarta.
And in case you wondered about how our Government is doing?
The government has not stockpiled enough of the only drug known to be effective against bird flu but is in “aggressive discussions” with its maker to buy more, federal health officials said Thursday.
Enough Tamiflu to treat 2.3 million people is in a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines being set aside in preparation for the next flu pandemic — a worldwide outbreak that influenza specialists fear could be triggered by the increasingly worrisome bird flu in Asia.
Negotiations are under way to buy enough Tamiflu pills for an additional 2 million people, with more purchases possible later.
That still would cover only 2 percent of the population, well short of World Health Organization recommendations that countries set aside enough Tamiflu for one-quarter of their people, said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
“Let me do the math for you: We’re about 62 million people under the WHO guidelines,” Davis said in chastising the government’s top flu officials during a meeting of his House Government Reform Committee.
Other lawmakers wondered why the U.S. is not stockpiling as much as other countries. Manufacturer Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. told the committee that Britain, France, Finland, Norway and New Zealand are placing orders that would cover between 20 percent and 40 percent of their populations.
Perhaps it’s ’cause I don’t eat meat, but has anybody noticed all this stuff is wrapped up in the killing and eating of animals?
Vegetarianism. It might save your life.
to james…
..as if vegetables aren’t living and don’t die. You can get sick from anything if it becomes infested with bacteria or some kind of virus.
It’s more to do with animals and people living in close proximity. There was talk once that most virus strains come from animals and then transfer to humans. Dogs, cats, sheep, cattle all have diseases and viruses that have been shown to transfer to humans.
Perhaps if we got rid of all the animals we would be ok? Or live on the moon.
..or NOT James.
Vegetarianism might kill you, too. http://www.westonaprice.org
It’s not “HEALTHY”…just trendy.
Also check this out!
A BBS forum post from the area, translated of course…
Kinda creepy to read. Amazing and scary that it’s happening.
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07220501/H5N1_Raging_Pandemic_China.html
They always mess up the vaccines. Perhaps if Hillary hadn’t previewed her national health care scheme with a nationalization of the vaccine program, the government could focus on select crises.
maybe the republicans dont give a fuck how many people die. notice the part in the article where it says a choice must be made as to who gets the vaccines that they do have?? you think thats going to be you and me reading this, cuz it ain’t, it’s gonna be bush and all his buddies and thats it, they dont care how many of the rest of us die. But seriously, first it was mad cow, which is still a major concern. then it is bird flu, which is becoming a much bigger problem than anyone cares to admit. next, it is found in pigs. we can’t keep eating and slaughtering animals if we can’t do so in a humane, disease-free fashion. eventually we will have to modify this behavior or all become vegetarians or die. I believe the US is better when it comes to regulating clean livestock but even we do fucked up shit to our food. asian countries are worse about it, but because of their lack of cleanliness, now look what we will have to deal with.
Update from Xinhua:
“According to initial investigations the disease was caused by a swine disease known as streptococcus suis II, Xinhua news agency said.
Sichuan province had reported 80 cases of the disease as of Monday morning, including 19 fatalities and 13 suspected cases, it said, citing Wu Jianlin of the Sichuan Provincial Disease Control Centre”.
While the strep is the “probable” cause, initial investigation first focused on whether or not bird flu or other similar scary stuff was involved — and wasn’t. All reported cases involved folks with below average immune systems in contact with sick hogs — no human-to-human transmission.