New Killer Respiratory Virus Endangers Human Kind

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Chummy
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30 May 2013, 1:07 pm

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mers ... 73812.html

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It's dangerous and it's spreading. A new SARS-like virus, named MERS-CoV, has till now infected 49 people and killed 27 of them, the World Health Organisation said.

According to a CNN report on Wednesday, the latest deaths were reported in Saudi Arabia.

The WHO has called the virus "a threat to the entire world".

Although many of the cases have occurred on the Arabian Peninsula, people have died of the infection elsewhere too. But WHO said all European cases had a direct or indirect connection to the Middle East.

On Tuesday, a patient died in France after having contracting the virus during a trip to the Middle East.

The WHO has named the virus Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

MERS-CoV hits the respiratory system and its symptoms are severe fever and cough and can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure. Officials do not yet know how the virus is spreading

What do you guys think? This virus has been around since october 2012 and i am surprised I hear about it only now. I work in a hospital so I know how many people die from infections. Against Bacteria you can treat with antibiotics but what can you do against a VIRUS?

With world population growing and alot of people die from infections even at the most advanced countries its pretty terrifying!

Fnord
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30 May 2013, 1:09 pm

:roll: Yeah ... right ...

xenon13
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30 May 2013, 1:11 pm

It is possible that people were infected without knowing it, and that this makes it seem worse than it is. Remember the H1N1?

Fnord
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30 May 2013, 1:15 pm

xenon13 wrote:

Remember the H1N1?

Nope! Never got it. Neither did 99.99999 percent of the global human population (17,000 out of 7,000,000,000 as of 2011).

Much ado about (relatively) nothing.

xenon13
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30 May 2013, 1:17 pm

Fnord wrote:

xenon13 wrote:

Remember the H1N1?

Nope! Never got it. Neither did 99.99999 percent of the global human population (17,000 out of 7,000,000,000 as of 2011).

Much ado about (relatively) nothing.

They were going on about how H1N1 was very deadly because they said they confirmed X had it and Y died and the ratio was high, later they admitted that large numbers of people had it without knowing it and so it was not as deadly as that. This is what I'm going on about.

xMistrox
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30 May 2013, 3:57 pm

Newest "pandemic". One of my close friends is a guard at a jail and said a person was arrested with some sort of lung infection that is very contagious and he died within 4 hours of being at the jail and all of the guards and inmates exposed to him had to be tested for it. He wasn't sure of the name, but this sounds similar. In the end no one there ended up getting it even after two weeks, so if it is the same thing, it must not be all that dangerous or it isn't spread by air/contact.

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Nambo
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30 May 2013, 6:38 pm

Might be another good opportunity for the big drug companies to make a huge profit selling vaccines to country's like they did a few years back with the Swine flu that was going to kill us all, just like it didnt back in the 70s.

Raptor
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30 May 2013, 8:39 pm

Maybe they can make another pandemic movie about it......

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYSyuuLk5g[/youtube]

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Shatbat
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30 May 2013, 10:20 pm

If it has been around since October and nothing has happened, why would now be any different?

I remember last Swine flu. Pork was very cheap at that time

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Spiderpig
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30 May 2013, 11:45 pm

The cheapest meat is the one that ensures you’ll never buy more :twisted:

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31 May 2013, 7:02 am

Why do no one take this seriously? Virus can be very dangerous...

ruveyn
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31 May 2013, 7:17 am

Chummy wrote:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mers-cov--middle-east-respiratory-symptom-coronavirus-world-health-organisation/1/273812.html

Quote:

Thousands of people die from infectious diseases every day of the year and yet the human race goes on.

Even the dreaded Black Death did not kill everyone in Europe after the disease was carried to Europe. Nor did the disease kill everyone in the near east, where it originated.

There will always be a fraction of the population, which for genetic reasons, is able to muster enough resistance to an infection to survive. In the entire 250,000 year history of the human race (homo sapien) disease has not caused its extinction.
Also the predecessors of humanity did not all die from disease (which is why we are here).

ruveyn

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31 May 2013, 7:44 am

Tollorin wrote:

Why do no one take this seriously? Virus can be very dangerous...

So can a pit full of knives. They can be very dangerous too, but only if you dive headfirst into them...

visagrunt
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31 May 2013, 3:24 pm

Tollorin wrote:

Why do no one take this seriously? Virus can be very dangerous...

I am a physician working in infectious disease--specifically respiratory diseases. So you can be damned sure that I am taking this seriously.

But in taking it seriously, I take a realistic assessment of the gravity of the situation.

If I see a patient with a respiratory complaint who has recently travelled to the Middle East, or who has been in contact with someone who has, then I will give MERS the attention that it merits. But I am not going to run around like Chicken Little proclaiming that the sky is falling until the clinical evidence suggests that I should.

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Tollorin
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31 May 2013, 4:21 pm

visagrunt wrote:

Tollorin wrote:

Why do no one take this seriously? Virus can be very dangerous...

I was not aiming it at you, more are those who don't take this as a serious potential threat in this thread. Maybe they should be reminded of the spanish flu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
Sure humankind survived, but 100 millions death is a LOT!! !

Shatbat
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31 May 2013, 4:40 pm

It is hard to be scared right now, I remember when the swine flu was all the rage there were people around with masks and it was in the news all the time and apparently our president at the time catched it, but in the end nothing really happened. I don't really remember if it was before or after, but the avian flu was similar; a lot of noise and no events. And I generally see this as something left to chance; it may come here or it may not. I may catch it or I may not. It may be deadly for me or it may not. If it comes here then I'd take proper steps to minimize my chance of infection, and if I catch it then I'd take steps to maximize my chance of survival. The rest is outside my control, and I don't see the point on panicking about things outside my control.

If it ends up being deadly, well, I am now starting to worry about all the other people who could die. But it isn't like I can do anything about it.

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