Just in case you were running out of things to be scared of, a new SARS-like virus

[deltasigma]

WASHINGTON — A deadly new virus has scientists scrambling to learn more about it and figure out whether the virus will become a pandemic or remain a limited threat.

The virus has sickened 13 people and killed seven of them in the Middle East and England since last April. All but one of those infected were hospitalized with severe pneumonia and several also developed kidney failure.

“We have a new and virulent virus,” Gwen Stephens, of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health in Riyadh, told members of the American Society of Microbiology on February 27 during the annual Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting. “We can only guess at its risks.”

Not yet named, the mysterious culprit is a coronavirus, a class that includes the virus that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS spread like wildfire in 2002 and 2003, infecting some 8,100 people and killing nearly 800.

source

The good news is that it doesn’t seem to be transmitted via the air from person to person so it appears “[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Verdana]that people must come into direct contact with the virus, such as by touching something an infected person has coughed or sneezed on.”[/FONT][/COLOR]

Something mentioned in the magazine version but not online, which is odd, is that this particular virus doesn’t grab on to the same proteins as the SARS virus so it’s not clear if work done there will be useful here.

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[PastTense]

They have discovered the first case in the United States (a health care worker who traveled from Saudi Arabia to the United States):

What Is MERS? Five Things to Know About the Mystery Virus

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus, or MERS outbreak:

2012 MERS outbreak

Here is entry for the virus:

MERS-related coronavirus

Here is the entry for the disease:

MERS

How big is this going to get?

[randompattern]

First US case reported today in Munster IN. I grew up near there.
Looks scary.

[johnpost]

30% mortality.

[Octarine]

@PastTense

How big is this going to get?

It’s probably not going to spread too widely - as mentioned above, it can’t travel by air, and the health care worker who was infected apparently spent a decent amount of time in Saudi Arabia before he caught it. It’s still disturbing, though, especially the mortality rate . . .

[wolfman]

Might be time to start pricing tickets to Madagascar.

[Little_Pig]

@wolfman

Might be time to start pricing tickets to Madagascar.

Um… no.

[Jophiel]

@Little_Pig

Um… no.

Reference to a flash game called Pandemic where you try to wipe out the world with a disease. Madagascar famously would close its airports and shipping ports the first time someone sneezed making most games end with “World infected except for Madagascar”.

The health reporter on the radio was sort of playing this down saying that despite the Munster person taking a bus from Chicago to Munster, the medical authorities weren’t overly concerned as repeated prolonged exposures were needed to spread it.

[Little_Pig]

@Jophiel

Reference to a flash game called Pandemic where you try to wipe out the world with a disease. Madagascar famously would close its airports and shipping ports the first time someone sneezed making most games end with “World infected except for Madagascar”.

The health reporter on the radio was sort of playing this down saying that despite the Munster person taking a bus from Chicago to Munster, the medical authorities weren’t overly concerned as repeated prolonged exposures were needed to spread it.

My first read was that they were warning people who may have been with the person in question on a plane. Now there’s a bus involved? Next think you know there will be a report that he took a cab from the bus station to where ever and then used a communal bike which he left at a mall that he staggered through before stopping in at a Tastee Freeze for a Big Tee Burger and an Oreo Freeze.

[don_t_ask]

If you want to worry about something health related this is your go to scare:

Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future

It is truly frightening.

“Sitting with a family, trying to explain that you have nothing left to treat their dying relative — that leaves an indelible mark on you,” he says. “This is not cancer; it’s infectious disease, treatable for decades.”

“Right now, if you want to be a sharp-looking hipster and get a tattoo, you’re not putting your life on the line,” says the CDC’s Bell. “Botox injections, liposuction, those become possibly life-threatening. Even driving to work: We rely on antibiotics to make a major accident something we can get through, as opposed to a death sentence.”

[Broomstick]

@randompattern

First US case reported today in Munster IN. I grew up near there.

So, it’s in Munster. I’ve been very annoyed by them saying “it’s in Indiana”. Uh… WHERE in Indiana? It’s a fairly large state. Is it in farm country? One of the urban areas? What? Even if no one outside Indiana has heard of some bitty town those of us living here might want to know.

(If anyone is wondering - Munster is in the north west corner of Indiana, it’s basically a Chicago suburb.)

@johnpost

30% mortality.

You know, when we get these outbreaks and they announce something like “30% morality” I can’t help but wonder if the stats are skewed towards those sick enough to hospitalize and may be skipping people in the community who have such mild infections they never even go to the doctor. Think of West Nile Virus - it’s no joke if you wind up sick enough to land in the hospital, but for every person that ill with it there’s something like 200 who just think they have a “bug”, feel off for a few days, and never bother to go to a doctor.