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Subscribe to RSSBritish officials say a mysterious virus related to SARS may have spread between humans, as they confirmed the 11th case worldwide of the new coronavirus in a patient who they say probably caught it from a family member.
The new virus was first identified last year in the Middle East and the 10 people who have previously been infected had all traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan.
According to Britain's Health Protection Agency, the latest patient is a U.K. resident with no recent travel to any of those countries but who had close personal contact with an earlier case. The patient may also have been at greater risk of infection due to an underlying medical condition and is currently in intensive care at a Birmingham hospital.
"Although this case provides strong evidence for person to person transmission, the risk of infection in most circumstances is still considered to be very low," John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the Health Protection Agency, said in a statement. "If (the) novel coronavirus were more infectious, we would have expected to have seen a larger number of cases."
Six hospital staffers where the patient is being treated are being monitored for infection but none has so far showed any symptoms of the illness. The patient did not come into contact with any other hospital patients and is currently being kept in isolation.
The new coronavirus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS. In 2003, a global outbreak of SARS killed about 800 people.
Officials at the World Health Organization said the new virus has probably already spread between humans in some instances. In Saudi Arabia last year, four members of the same family became ill and two died. And in a cluster of about a dozen people in Jordan, the virus may have spread at a hospital's intensive care unit.
"We know that in some of those cases there was close physical contact between family members caring for one another, so we can't rule out human-to-human transmission," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman.
He said there were still big gaps in the understanding of the novel coronavirus, which can cause acute pneumonia and kidney failure. Of the 11 cases to date, five people have died.
Health experts still aren't sure how humans are being infected. The new coronavirus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.
Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota, warned the virus could be adapting into a more transmissible form. "At any moment the fire hydrant of human-to-human transmission cases could open," he said. "This is definitely a 'stay tuned' moment." He said before SARS spread worldwide, there were a handful of human-to-human cases. Something such as a virus mutation may have triggered the explosion of cases.
WHO says the virus is probably more widespread than the Middle East and has advised countries to test any people with unexplained pneumonia.
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This is worrisome. One day there will be the "Perfect Storm" of virus, a mixture of everything out there, and it will devastate us.
All you have to do is look back almost 100 years to the Great Influenza pandemic. The world lost millions of people in slightly more than a year. Estimates upwards of 50 million people died.
The movie Contagion spells this out.
Its not a question of if rather when and with today's globalized society it will have spread to many countries before its discovered. The Norovirus "cruise ship" illness although not as dangerous as the "Bird Flu" shows just how fast a highly contagious disease can spread.
@BillyBob - wasn't that influenza pandemic right after WWI? I think there were a lot of people living in deplorable conditions due to the war and had inadequate shelter on top of poor medical services.
The planet will make whatever adjustments are necessary to counter overpopulation.
As for the pandemic referenced earlier it was brought back to the US by American troops who had been exposed in Europe. It spread rapidly. Buildings were marked where the dead had died and been removed. It was highly contagious. Some might argue that antibiotics were not as potent or existent back then, but I would argue with our misuse of antibiotics they will be ineffective against the next pandemic.
Ron-Antibiotics have no effect on viral infection.
seems like that all we hear about anymore, some strange scary virus messing with us.
Whenever a species over populates they either eat up all of the resources necessary to keep them alive and they have a big die off or a nasty, opportunistic virus breaks out and kills off a large portion. Looks like both could happen in our case. We will have population control one way or another.
In Laurie Garrett's book "The Coming Plague" (a little dated but still the best book out there on epidemiology in general) she gives one analogy that really helps understand the differences between bacteria and viruses.
She compared bacteria to a hard drive that is half full of data. It has plenty of room to store new "tricks". This is why bacteria tend to slowly acquire immunity to various antibiotics. Bacteria tend to slow steady mutation as a result.
But viruses she compared to an old floppy disk that is completely full of data. In order for a virus to learn a new "trick" it must lose some other function. Occasionally viruses get all the "right" components on the disk at once and you get things like the Spanish Flu epidemics. But the next time a similar strain of that flu comes around, it is not as dangerous because it is missing one or more of the components. Viruses also mutate very, very quickly, constantly acquiring new "tricks" and dropping old ones. This is what makes it extremely difficult to predict how bad even a given strain of influenze will be.
Pesky Brits just have to be FIRST at everything.. (snicker)
Yes. Lets thank them for mad cow. I wonder how many people attending the Olympics there unknowingly consumed horse meat burgers. Yum!!!!
Most of the viruses have come out of poor countries like Africa and rural China where hygene of animals and humans is poor. Saudi Arabia is a rich nation but slavery of poor immigrants is a practice within many Muslim dominated countries. I wonder if they are bringing these bugs into Saudi Arabia.
The hygiene of animals in the US is amazingly poor, which is why we so often get outbreaks of various diseases, etc. In general, if a new disease is to be found, it is most likely to be found in Asia because Asia has most of the world's population. By comparison, the US has a much smaller population.
Where are ya Bob? I need another musturd biscuit/keyboard story.
I got herpes in 1978 and now have nerve damage from the virus.
The 'Bir Flu' and SARs are still killing people and birds in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, etc...
The Thai Medical authority has an on-going vaccanation policy - Everyone is vaccanated. All trucks entering Thailand are sprayed and checked for illegal transportation of animals...
So far this year & last year Thailand has few reported cases of 'Bird Flu' and ZERO of SARs...
I'm glad I live where I do. No need to move in the event of a global pandemic. I'm already in the boonies. And there's an ample supply of food to harvest locally.
The only real problem would be, people from the cities moving out here and bringing the sickness with them. That's why we'll have to shoot them. j/k'ing :P
Goats and camels??? My god (not allah!) These are transmitted from animals!!! What are these people doing????