Mystery Illness Kills 9 in China

[Tuckerfan]

From the land that gave us SARS.

An unidentified disease has killed nine farmers and sickened 11 others in a rural part of China’s western Sichuan province, prompting the government to dispatch an emergency team of researchers to investigate whether the deaths are related to bird flu, a Health Ministry spokesman said Saturday.

State media said the illnesses occurred between June 24 and July 21 in about 15 villages surrounding the city of Ziyang, 945 miles southwest of Beijing. All of the farmers had recently slaughtered sick pigs or sheep, and researchers from the health and agriculture ministries are investigating a possible link, the official New China News Agency said.

If it’s bird flu, then it’s jumped species three times, once from birds to sheep, next to pigs, and then to humans. If it’s not bird flu, then what is it?

[ParentalAdvisory]

Sars Ii

[China_Guy]

this is in a really impoverished part of china. peasants have a high mortality rate. good news here is that the government is investigating these deadly occurances. very positive change since sars

[MrFantsyPants]

Is anyone reminded of the dramatically foreshadowing news reports at the beginning of every zombie movie?

[Savannah]

The Globe & Mail has it at seventeen now.

[Tuckerfan]

The outbreak is continuing and China cracks down on reporters covering the story.

Authorities in the Chinese province of Sichuan have begun a campaign to tell farmers about the dangers of a swine disease that has killed 32 people.

Meanwhile, the infection has spread to five more cities across the province.

There are now 163 human cases blamed on streptococcus suis, which was first found in people in the area in June.

State media says the pig disease is under control, but the authorities have banned independent reporting on the outbreak.

The BBC’s Nick Mackie in neighbouring Chongqing says foreign journalists found speaking to people are detained, and their notes and recordings erased; no official interviews are granted.

So, the Chinese government is saying, “We’ve got everything under control.” and yet its obvious from what news we do have that they clearly don’t. One of the things which allowed SARS to spread in China was the government’s refusal to admit the disease was spreading (they’ve handled AIDS the same way, IIRC). Not good at all.

[Cartooniverse]

This is how things work there.

Imagine what the Olympics coverage is going to be like ???

[elbows]

This province of China provides most of the chicken and pork consumed in Hong Kong, and, yes that’s a lot of chicken and pork. The impoverished peasants live in very close quarters with they animals. Unhealthy in the extreme.

The WHO and others in the know, all agree the next SARS like pandemic will emerge from this veritable petri dish of desease.

As it happens I was caught in SE Asia when SARS appeared and saw first hand the cost, not just in human life, but in lost revenue to affected areas, and it was shocking.

It seemed to me you didn’t have to be too forward thinking to see that it would be cheaper all round for the world to just get together and buy cages and pens for the peasants of this province.

The most frightening aspects, I think, of this whole dynamic is that peasants in this area live in such frightening conditions and routinely die in such numbers that the Chinese government is unlikely to take any notice. They only began to notice SARS when they couldn’t ship enough vinegar to the place, vinegar is the only thing available with disinfectant qualities. Peasants had actually been dying since the previous November though the world failed to notice until SARS left China and took root elsewhere.

Secondly, and much more frighteningly, infected or exposed citizens familiar with this form of government are more likely to flee than seek aid, fearful, rightly so, of being detained into camps when Bejing finally is pressured to move from denial to action.

Be afraid.

[elbows]

My newspaper just reported the deaths as now 157!

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Rumor has it that it is a swine flu, but no bets.