Thoughts, Dreams, and Emotions…

Bali suspect faces possible death
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 Posted: 12:28 AM EDT (0428 GMT)
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian prosecutors formally charged their first suspect Wednesday in last year’s terror bombings on the resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
The suspect, known by the single name Amrozi, allegedly belongs to Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qaeda linked regional terror group blamed for the near-simultaneous bombings at two Bali nightclubs.
One of 29 people detained in connection with the October 12 attack, Amrozi faces charges of violating anti-terrorism laws that could carry the death penalty, a spokesman for the prosecution said.
His trial was expected to begin before May 12. No more details of the charges were immediately available.
Amrozi’s arrest in November last year was considered the first major break in the investigation into the bombings.
Police claim he bought the explosives used in the attack and drove the van that blew up outside one of the clubs.
The blasts were the bloodiest terror assault since the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Jemaah Islamiyah also is thought to be behind a series of Christmas Eve church bombings in Indonesia in 2000, as well as a foiled plot to blow up U.S., Australian, British and Israeli missions in Singapore.
The group’s alleged leader, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, is currently on trial in Jakarta charged with treason in connection with the church attacks. He has not been charged in the Bali bombing.
Dozens of its alleged members have been arrested in Singapore and Malaysia. The group’s goal, according to regional law enforcement officials, is to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.
Other suspects arrested over the Bali blasts are expected to go on trial later this year. All the trials are scheduled to take place on Bali island.
Source: CNN.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

Rather Be at the Spa?
April 16th, 2003
They wear herbal eye masks, sip healthy drinks from the juice bar and rest their necks on warm pillows. They slip their feet into toasty booties, breathe in the sweet aroma of lavender and lemongrass and watch movies through video goggles.
No, Alex isn’t a massage therapist, but the Athens, Ga.-based dentist believes such pampering will make his office seem, well, less like a dentist’s office.
He began creating the spa-like atmosphere — a massage therapist works out of a converted treatment room — about four years ago after the staff brainstormed ways to make dental appointments more appealing.
“It’s changing people’s perception of what it is to have dental treatment,” Alex says. “People are looking forward to coming to the dentist.”
That sums up the goal of a growing number of dentists across the country who have adopted the spa-dentistry concept, with luxuries nobody would have dreamed of in the traditional sterile dental office where the most comfortable thing around was the chair (even if those sitting in it rarely were).
It’s hard to say how many dental offices have combined elements of the spa or other soothing touches with the more typical filling, drilling, root canals and such. However, anecdotal evidence suggests the idea is spreading in dental care, which federal officials say accounted for a record $65.6 billion in U.S. spending in 2001.
At one of the biggest dental conventions in the country, the Chicago Dental Society will offer a course at its midwinter meeting this weekend that includes tips on how to “create a comfortable spa-like atmosphere for patients and team.”
“We’ve been seeing more and more focus on making our patients comfortable at the dentist office, and I think this whole spa-dentist office concept has come out of that,” says Dr. Kimberly Harms, a consumer adviser to the American Dental Association (ADA). “And given the positive response from patients, I think you’re going to see more and more of a trend in that direction.”
Harms and her husband, James, both dentists, have an office in Farmington, Minn. She likes pampering in the dentist office in part because she empathizes with dental-phobic patients.
“We don’t have a good reputation in the public,” she concedes. And her view of getting dental care? “I’m a big baby. I hate going to the dentist.”
However, Harms dreads it much less nowadays. After all, she’s not only a dentist but a patient at her practice. And slipping on goggles to watch a movie somehow made getting a root canal much easier to bear.
That’s but one of the plush features at the Harms’ practice, which they renovated extensively after moving in a decade ago. Today, patients settle in to couches and easy chairs in a reception area painted in soothing pastels, read books or magazines from the library, nibble cookies and drink juice or coffee.
In treatment rooms, patients sit on chairs with back massagers and snuggle in warm blankets beneath ceilings with flowers painted on them. Instead of watching the needle or drill, they can take in a movie or gaze out the large picture windows at a garden with evergreen trees, flowers in summer and heated bird baths.
Harms says she and her husband don’t charge additional fees for any of their non-dental services.
Other practices, such the Imagemax Dental Day Spa in Houston, charge separately for each service. Along with dentistry, Imagemax offers Swedish body massage, massage with hot stones, “body polishes” with sea salts, body wraps for weight loss, facials and Botox treatments, among other options.
The ADA, Harms says, considers quality dental care the top priority, but welcomes the meshing of luxury and dentistry for a simple reason.
“What will happen is patients will be more comfortable going to the dentist, and that will cause them to go more often,” she says. “The ADA’s main concern is the health and safety of our patients, and anything that can bring them into the office and improve their oral health is a darn good thing.”
Harms sums up the boom in spa-dentistry this way: “It all really relates to what the patients are wanting, and we’re not only dentists, we’re small businesspeople. It’s really fun to practice in an arena where you’re giving patients what they want. I think it’s a nicer way to practice dentistry, improving our lifestyle as well as patients’ lifestyles.”

More information
For more on maintaining oral health, visit the American Dental Association. Or check out the Imagemax Dental Day Spa in Houston.
Source: HealthScoutNews

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

Mystery Virus Ravages Hong Kong, Hopes on Vaccine
April 14, 2003 3:08 a.m. ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s leader said SARS has not yet been brought under control, as the mystery virus that has been dubbed the “21st century disease” claimed more victims and took a mounting economic toll.
A Canadian lab offered a ray of hope that a vaccine could be developed for the virus that has now killed 132 people and infected 3,200 across the world — but health experts say it may be months, even years away.
Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa told his boss, Chinese President Hu Jintao, in China’s Shenzen city that the virus had yet to be “brought under effective control” in the territory of seven million, although the nature of the disease and how to treat it was better understood, a government statement said late on Sunday.
Hu’s low-profile visit to southern Guangdong province was the strongest indication yet of how seriously the Chinese leadership views the worsening health crisis in Hong Kong.
The number of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome cases in Hong Kong has soared to 1,150 and its death toll to 40 with five more announced on Sunday — the largest jump in weeks. The flu-like virus, which often deteriorates into pneumonia, has been carried by travelers to about 20 countries in the past six weeks after first showing up in Guangdong in November. In a weekend statement released one month after issuing its first alert on the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) sounded a warning that SARS could become a global epidemic.
“If the SARS maintains its present pathogenicity and transmissibility, SARS could become the first severe new disease of the 21st century with global epidemic potential,” David Heymann, the agency’s executive director of communicable diseases, wrote on the WHO Web Site (www.who.int/csr/sars/en/).
The ways SARS is emerging suggests great potential for rapid spread in a highly mobile, interconnected world, Heymann said.

QUARANTINE MEASURES
Singapore reported three new deaths from the virus on Sunday, taking its toll to 12. It announced the quarantining of 400 staff and patients at its biggest hospital. The virus, which is new to science and has no known cure, has hit hospital staff the hardest, putting healthcare systems under strain. Health officials say they are not sure how the virus spreads, although close contact with an infected person appears to be the main method of transmission Its impact on business has been merciless. The WHO Web Site notes the disease has already caused an estimated $30 billion in losses, which could rapidly mount in a globalized economy. The illness has crippled tourism in Asia and forced airlines to cuts flights sharply. Economists say the longer the crisis lasts the deeper it will eat into the region’s economies and it could push some, including Hong Kong, back into recession.
On Sunday, Asia’s fourth-largest carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, said it would not rule out grounding its entire passenger fleet next month if passenger numbers continue to fall. Hong Kong-based Cathay, which is carrying only a third of its usual traffic volume, said in an internal memo the company was losing US$3 million a day. “If demand falls still further, we will have to respond accordingly,” said Tony Tyler, director of corporate development.
A Canadian laboratory said on Sunday it had broken the genetic sequence behind the SARS virus.
The Michael Smith Genome Sciences Center in British Columbia said this could help speed development of a reliable diagnostic test and eventually an effective vaccine.
Canada, which has the third-largest number of SARS cases, said its death toll had risen to 13 with more than 270 probable or suspected cases of infection. Thousands have been quarantined.

LONG HAUL
Singapore reopened secondary schools on Monday after shutting all classes three weeks ago to contain the virus and university classes resumed in Hong Kong. But life in SARS-affected countries was far from normal. “We are in this for the long haul,” Singapore Health Minister Lim Hng Kian said when asked if the virus was under control. Singapore air force paramedics in camouflage fatigues, gloves and surgical face masks greet air passengers from SARS-afflicted Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong province, taking temperatures, giving a chilling appearance to one of Asia’s biggest air hubs. The 608 people under home quarantine in Singapore have closed-circuit TV cameras installed outside their doors, and must regularly respond when called on. Those who don’t risk getting an electronic tag slapped around their wrist that beeps authorities when worn outside the home, or when tampered with, after 12 people broke quarantine since late March. The first such tag was issued over the weekend.
WHO has advised against travel to southern China and Hong Kong, which has further cut arrivals in Hong Kong, one of Asia’s main financial centers and top tourist destinations.
Cathay’s warning about grounding its passenger fleet spooked other Asian airline stocks, which were down between two and four percent on Monday. Singapore Airlines, Asia’s most profitable carrier, has cut flights by 20 percent.
Source: Reuters

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

SARS Appears in More Asian Nations
April 11, 2003
INDONESIA AND the Philippines on Friday reported their first cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, both of them foreigners who had traveled to Hong Kong or Singapore, bringing the number of nations with reported cases to 20.
Redoubling precautions, Hong Kong ordered members of 70 to 80 households with known victims of the disease to stay in their homes for 10 days in case they have been infected. Police were making spot inspections and violators faced fines, imprisonment or confinement in quarantine camps.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department advised Americans not to travel to China unless necessary. It also alerted travelers to a new Chinese government policy requiring hospitalization of anyone � including foreigners � who shows SARS symptoms until the contagious phase passes.
The State Department said that under the new Chinese policy, patients will not be allowed to see family members, personal physicians or U.S. consular officials.

55 DEATHS IN CHINA
Beijing has reported four of China�s 55 deaths from SARS and 22 cases of infection. Experts believe the disease started in southern China late last year and then spread to other parts of the country and around the world.
A Chinese health official and the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai confirmed that at least seven foreign nationals, including two Americans, were being treated in that city. None of the foreigners at Shanghai�s Pulmonary Disease Hospital has been confirmed to have SARS, said an official of the Shanghai Center for Disease Control who would give only his surname, Jiang. But on Wednesday, an American teacher was pronounced dead after falling ill in the hard-hit province of Guangdong. The teacher was taken to Hong Kong for treatment in what a friend contended was an attempt by Chinese authorities to avoid the embarrassment of another foreigner�s death on the mainland.
James Salisbury, a 52-year-old English instructor at a polytechnic institute in China, already appeared dead when he was wheeled into an ambulance in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, according to the friend, David Westbrook, who was with Salisbury and had been in contact with doctors about his condition
Meanwhile, researchers released more evidence suggesting SARS may be caused by a new coronavirus, a bug that ordinarily causes common colds. But scientists were checking whether some other microbe might make SARS more severe or easier to catch.

ALMOST 3,000 INFECTED
Worldwide, SARS has claimed at least 111 lives and sickened more than 2,700 people. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, coughing, chills and body aches. Mainland China and Hong Kong have reported the highest numbers of infections and deaths. Canada, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia also have reported fatalities.
Indonesia�s first confirmed SARS case was a 47-year-old British businessman who was hospitalized Wednesday. He had visited Hong Kong and Singapore before arriving in Indonesia, said Mariani Reksoprodjo, a health ministry spokeswoman. She said the country had nine other people with SARS-like symptoms under observation.
The Philippines reported its first �probable� case in a 64-year-old foreigner who frequently travels between Manila and Hong Kong. The patient sought treatment immediately after his symptoms started and did not appear to have infected anyone else, said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Canada has seen the largest outbreak of SARS outside of Asia, with 10 people killed among more than 200 probable or suspected cases, the first a woman returning from Hong Kong. Ethnic Chinese in Canada say they�ve been stigmatized as carriers and that their businesses have suffered.
Seeking to ease concern, Prime Minister Jean Chretien dined in Toronto�s Chinatown and urged others to do the same.

IN U.S., WORKPLACE SARS
The United States has reported its first SARS case suspected to have spread in a workplace. The United States has had no deaths, but 166 suspected cases, most of them people falling ill after travel in Asia.
In Hong Kong, health officials were making daily phone calls to the 150 people affected by the territory�s new quarantine order to ask about their health. They would be visited by health workers for home medical checks, said Health Department spokeswoman Elaine Wong.The government has promised to provide the quarantined households with food and other necessities.Police were to drop by the homes unannounced to check on compliance with the order, announced Thursday as Hong Kong reported it had almost 1,000 cases and 30 deaths from SARS.The government also said it would post on the Internet a list of buildings where SARS cases had been found.

IN RELATED DEVELOPMENTS:
- Malaysia announced it would deny visas to most Hong Kong people. On Wednesday, Malaysia said it would begin barring all tourists from China while those from other places badly hit by SARS will need to obtain health certificates before entering.
- German airline Lufthansa said Thursday it had been informed by Hong Kong health authorities that one of its passengers had been diagnosed with SARS. It said the passenger, a 48-year-old Chinese man, had traveled with Lufthansa between March 30 and April 4.
- Taiwan said medical staff would quarantine all arriving travelers found to have a fever.
- In Singapore, Manpower Minister Lee Boon Yang said that over the next month all foreign workers arriving from SARS-stricken areas will be quarantined for 10 days.
- SilkAir flew home a Singaporean in an empty plane after he was turned back in Thailand on suspicion of being infected with SARS. A battery of tests later showed the man was free of the virus.
- Australia declared itself to be free of SARS, with health authorities saying the one suspected case detected on Australian soil was a false alarm. A British tourist, who had been declared a probable SARS case but had recovered and left the country, had been suffering from influenza, test results had found, health authorities said.
Source: MSNBC.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

Coronavirus Confirmed as SARS Agent
Laurie Barclay, MD
April 9, 2003 � Within just two months, investigators have found what may be the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), according to a report published online April 8 by The Lancet. A coronavirus that has never been described before was isolated from two patients and then confirmed through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 45 of 50 patients but in no controls. According to the commentators, the progress is truly “remarkable and unprecedented.” A separate article in The Lancet also provides guidelines for management.
“This report provides evidence that a virus in the coronavirus family is the etiological agent of SARS,” lead author Malik Peiris, from the University of Hong Kong, says in a news release. “However, it remains possible that other viruses act as opportunistic secondary invaders to enhance the disease progression, a hypothesis that needs to be investigated further.”
The Hong Kong University SARS Study Group reviewed records and microbiological findings for 50 patients with SARS, representing more than five separate epidemiologically linked transmission clusters, and ranging in age from 23 to 74 years. Evaluation included chest radiography and double-blinded laboratory testing of nasopharyngeal aspirates and serum samples.
The most frequent symptoms were fever, chills, myalgia, and cough. Fewer than 25% of patients had upper respiratory tract symptoms, but 10% had gastrointestinal symptoms. Respiratory symptoms and auscultatory findings were milder than would be expected from chest x-ray findings.
Predictors of severity were household contact with other infected individuals, older age, lymphopenia, and liver dysfunction. In two patients, a virus belonging to the family Coronaviridae was isolated. Serological and reverse-transcriptase PCR specific for this virus was positive in 45 of 50 patients with SARS, but in no controls. Of 32 patients from whom acute and convalescent sera were available, all had rising antibody titers to this coronavirus.
Because this virus is not one of the two known human coronaviruses, nor is it exactly like any of the known animal coronaviruses, the investigators believe that it may be a new virus which may have originated from animals. Additional genetic analysis may confirm this hypothesis.
“The high incidence of altered liver function, leukopenia, severe lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and subsequent evolution into adult respiratory distress syndrome suggests a severe systemic inflammatory damage induced by this human pneumonia-associated coronavirus,” they write. “Thus immunomodulation by steroid treatment may be important to complement the empirical antiviral treatment with ribavirin.”
They describe a “window of opportunity” of around eight days from symptom onset to respiratory failure, and they note that severe complicated cases are associated with underlying disease and delayed use of ribavirin and steroid treatment. The epidemiologic data suggest that spread is by droplets or by direct and indirect contact, although airborne spread and fecal-oral transmission cannot be ruled out.
“These findings significantly strengthen the tentative etiological association reported by other investigators who have also isolated a novel coronavirus from patients with SARS,” Ann Falsey and Edward Walsh, from the University of Rochester in New York, write in an accompanying commentary. “As other pathogens, such as human metapneumovirus and Chlamydia spp, are identified in SARS patients, it will be important to use control groups to determine their role in causality or as cofactors for severe disease.”
They note that nearly 40% of the patients developed respiratory failure requiring assisted ventilation, and that the lack of untreated control patients prevents definite conclusions about the efficacy of treatment.
In a second commentary, William Ho, from the Hospital Authority Building in Kowloon, Hong Kong, reports that the first index case in Hong Kong was admitted on Feb. 22, 2003. As of April 6, 842 cases with 22 deaths were identified in Hong Kong. The Hospital Authority of Hong Kong and the Department of Health have implemented public health measures and hospital policies for diagnosis and management of patients with SARS, which are available online at http://www.ha.org.hk.
Algorithms consider whether a suspected case has had close or social contact with a patient with SARS, whether there are classic symptoms of fever, cough, and shortness of breath, and whether chest x-ray reveals a new pulmonary infiltrate. Management may consist of outpatient monitoring or admission to hospital or designated medical center.
Source: Medscape.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

SARS Not a Disease of Asians
April 08, 2003 4:28 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Chinese-Canadians complained they were being victimized for the spread of the respiratory illness SARS, a top U.S. health official said on Tuesday it is not a disease unique to Asians. Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned against such discrimination. She also said U.S. authorities were so far controlling any threat of an epidemic here in the United States. But in China, doctors said the government was under-reporting the number of cases and said many hospital wards were full.Hong Kong doctors also published some of the first journal reports on SARS that give clues about why some patients die and others do not.
At least 103 people have died worldwide from SARS and 2,750 have been infected in about 20 countries — nearly half of them in China. Doctors believe the epidemic began in China’s southern Guangdong province in November. The older the patient, the more likely they are to die of SARS, Dr. Joseph Sung and colleagues in the medical team at Hong Kong’s Prince of Wales Hospital reported in a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine. Those who died also had high levels of an enzyme suggesting lung damage called lactate dehydrogenase, the team reported. In addition, patients who died had high levels of immune cells called neutrophils, which the body releases to fight invading bacteria or viruses. Although all five patients who died in Sung’s study had some other illness, such as congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis or hepatitis, being ill with something besides SARS did not put patients at special risk of dying, they reported.
Canada is one of the countries hardest hit by SARS, with some 226 people infected and 10 reported deaths. The virus was carried to Canada by people flying on airliners from Asia.

WORKERS QUARANTINED
Thousands of Canadians, many of them health care workers, have been quarantined in their homes, while others are wearing masks to work for fear that they might have been exposed to the virus and might infect others. Chinese-Canadians said they were being treated like monsters. Ming Tat Cheung, president of Toronto’s Chinese Cultural Center, said shoppers were staying away from normally bustling Chinatown, and sales were down by up to 70 percent. “We have people calling here saying that Canadians are telling them ‘You dirty Chinese, you eat everything, that’s why you bring diseases’,” Cheung told Reuters. “Chinese Canadians are the victims, not the instigators.” Gerberding said such reactions were illogical. “This is not an illness of Asians,” Gerberding told a U.S. Senate hearing. “This is an illness of people in a particular part of the world where the virus is spreading.” But one Toronto cab driver said he was not picking up passengers from hospitals or from the Chinatown area. “It’s not racism — it’s a precaution. I have to protect my family,” said the cab driver, who refused to give his name.
In China’s Guangdong province, officials said the rate of new infections was down sharply and the outbreak was under control. At least three more people died in Beijing from SARS than officially reported, doctors in the Chinese capital said on Tuesday, as fears spread and hospitals disclosed suspected cases not previously revealed.

HOSPITAL INUNDATED
“It’s impossible there are only 19 SARS cases in Beijing,” said a doctor at the Beijing University No. 1 Hospital. “There are no beds left in our epidemic ward.” Beijing has reported 19 cases and four deaths out of 1,279 infections and 53 deaths nationwide, most of them in Guangdong, where the virus first appeared last November.
More than 40 people in Hong Kong’s Ngau Tau Kok district in Kowloon and Tuen Mun in the New Territories caught the disease in the last 10 days, said a health department spokesman and a district lawmaker in Tuen Mun, raising fears it is far from contained.
Two more deaths and 45 new infections were reported on Tuesday in Hong Kong, where the disease has already killed 25 people.
Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin told a radio program cockroaches might have carried infected waste from sewage pipes into apartments in a huge housing complex, Amoy Gardens, which has had a quarter of the city’s 928 infections.
CDC officials had no immediate comment on such reports. Gerberding told the Senate appropriations committee hearing that the CDC had enough resources to deal with SARS. She said the CDC was meeting with the airline industry to help find ways to prevent SARS from spreading even more.
Source: Reuters

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

SARS Death Toll Hits 100
April 7, 2003 09:45 p.m. EST
(CBS) China disclosed Monday that a deadly respiratory illness had struck in more of its provinces than previously reported, while experts in the south looked into whether the disease came from animals on farms or in the wild. The worldwide death toll reached 100.
In nearby Hong Kong, officials said they were preparing for a worst-case scenario of 3,000 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, amid fears its health system could be stretched beyond its limits. There are 700 cases there and officials say its hospitals can currently handle 1,500 cases.
On Monday, Hong Kong health officials announced that a 78-year-old woman had died � the 100th death reported in Asia and North America. More than 2,300 people have been sickened worldwide. China and Canada both reported one new fatality in the last day, and two deaths were reported Monday in Singapore.
Canada’s ninth death occurred April 1 at a Toronto hospital, but was only confirmed as SARS on Sunday. The victim initially was given a different cause of death but officials took another look at the case when a relative was found to be a possible SARS victim, officials said Sunday.
In the interim, reports Chris Mavrides of CBS Radio affiliate CFRB-AM, the victim’s family has contracted the illness and may have spread it to others.
“We’re not yet out of the woods,” Dr. Colin D’Cunha, the Ontario chief medical officer of health, said. Like most of the other Canadian cases, this one has a link to a particular Toronto hospital, said D’Cunha: Scarborough Grace Hospital east of Toronto, which has now been declared the “hot zone” for the disease. Canada has 170 cases of SARS, all in Toronto.
China and Hong have been the hardest hit by SARS, with 53 and 23 deaths respectively in each nation. Symptoms include high fever, aches, dry cough and shortness of breath. No cure has been found.
Also Monday, the Beijing office of the Geneva-based International Labor Organization was sealed, and an employee of the diplomatic office building said it was disinfected after a Finnish official of the agency fell ill with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in Beijing. The official died Sunday. Chinese officials had reported 43 SARS deaths in the southern province of Guangdong, where experts suspect the illness originated, with fatalities also coming in Beijing and the Guangxi region.
On Monday, Chinese state television reported that there were also one SARS death each in the provinces of Shanxi in the north, Sichuan in the west and Hunan in central China � the first fatalities in those areas and an indication the disease was more widespread geographically than previously acknowledged. The new disclosures come after mounting criticism at home and abroad that China’s communist government was too slow to release information about SARS.
In New Delhi, World Health Organization director-general Gro Harlem Brundt said Sunday that “it would have been much better if the Chinese government had been more open in the early stages.”
Meanwhile, World Health Organization experts who are searching Guangdong for clues to how SARS spreads and why it kills were looking into whether it might have come from animals. The team hasn’t yet found clear evidence to support that widely discussed possibility, but its members met with local animal-health officials and discussed both farm animals and wildlife, including pigs, ducks, bats, rodents, chickens and other birds, said team leader, Dr. Robert Breiman. Experts have linked SARS to a new form of coronavirus, other forms of which usually are found in animals. That link “may suggest that it originates from animals,” Breiman said. However, he said, “the discussions today were inconclusive, so we really don’t have clues.”
The team, in Guangdong since Thursday, also is meeting with doctors and scientists, visiting hospitals and reviewing medical records.
On Sunday, the Health Ministry reported six additional SARS deaths that raised China’s death toll to 52. That included Pekka Aro, the 53-year-old International Labor Organization official who died Sunday in a Beijing hospital, but the ministry didn’t give any details about the other deaths. The ILO office was closed Monday and smelled of disinfectant. A woman at the front desk of the diplomatic office building said government health workers started cleaning it Friday after the Finnish official was confirmed to have SARS.
The visa office of the New Zealand Embassy, located in the same building, was closed Monday as a precaution, said a New Zealand diplomat, Moana George. She said the embassy was discussing with the building management how to ensure any possible infection wouldn’t spread through the building.
Also Monday, the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore reported that Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has called off an official trip to Beijing this week on the advice of his doctors. The report said Goh was going ahead with a visit to India that began Monday.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese officials said they were considering barring visitors from countries with the mysterious flu-like disease.
Japan reported six new possible cases and ordered local authorities to draw up emergency plans for coping with the outbreak.
Source: CBSnews.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

More deaths in Asia linked to SARS
April 5, 2003 12:49 p.m. EST
SINGAPORE — Hong Kong and Malaysia reported new deaths from a mystery illness Saturday, bringing the global death toll to at least 89, while China vowed to share more information on the disease that apparently started in one of its southern provinces.
Hong Kong reported three new deaths and said the number of its people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, had risen to 800 – accounting for more than a third of the world’s more than 2,300 cases. The disease has killed 20 in the territory.
President Bush followed the lead of governments in Asia and Canada by giving American health authorities the power to quarantine anyone infected with the disease. U.S. health authorities are investigating about 100 suspected cases of the disease at home. The U.S. Pacific Command ordered all military personnel not to travel to China and Hong Kong – including Navy ships that regularly dock in Hong Kong – unless it was essential to their missions.
In China, where the government has been criticized for failing to notify the international community when SARS first hit in November, Vice Premier Wu Yi promised to start releasing more information to the public, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Malaysia became the 20th place to join the list of SARS-affected areas after confirming that the illness killed a 64-year-old man who died on March 30 in Kuala Lumpur. He developed SARS symptoms during a recent visit to China, said Malaysia’s Health Ministry Director-General Mohamad Taha Arif.
Thailand’s health minister, Sudarat Keyuraphan, said he was considering calling military medics to help screen incoming passengers for the disease. The World Health Organization has reported seven SARS cases and two deaths in Thailand.
Singapore said the number of new infections in the city-state was dropping and people should resume their normal routines. The government said it would begin reopening the country’s schools in the coming week after shutting them last month due to the disease, which has killed six people and infected 103. However, parents will have to sign declarations saying their children are healthy, and students who have traveled outside Singapore will have their temperatures taken by school staff for 10 days after their return. Singapore’s economic losses for the first month of the outbreak could total an estimated $286 million could hit $2.3 billion if the outbreak continues for three months, Standard Chartered Bank economist Joseph Tan was quoted in the Straits Times newspaper.
In China’s southern Guangdong province, a WHO team met at Zhongshan University where experts have collected hundreds of specimens of blood, lung fluid and other materials from people who died of SARS and those who recovered, team leader Dr. Robert Breiman said.
WHO wants to compare the samples to determine whether those who died were killed by a combination of viruses or bacteria or just one strain, he said. The meeting came after the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, Li Liming, offered the world an extraordinary apology for failing to release information sooner about the disease – first detected in China in November.
In Hong Kong, hygiene workers in protective suits collected rats and roaches for testing at the Amoy Gardens apartment complex, where at least 250 residents were infected. They hope the pests may hold a clue to how the disease was transmitted. Agricultural officials also rounded up pets, from dogs to turtles, from the building after a cat was found to carry a type of animal virus called a coronavirus. Experts believe SARS might be a new form of the virus, the South China Morning Post reported. Fear of infection kept many Hong Kong residents from crossing over to mainland China to sweep their ancestors’ graves for the ancient Ching Ming festival.
In Australia, staff of the national airline Qantas were trying to contact 310 passengers who were on flight QF094 from Los Angeles to Melbourne with three children suspected of carrying the disease. The children and their parents flew from their home in Toronto for a holiday in Melbourne.
Cleaners, maintenance staff, pilots and flight attendants who had contact with the aircraft are also being alerted to watch out for symptoms which include high fever, aches, a dry cough and shortness of breath.
Source: Nandotimes.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

Child Abuse Cases On The Rise

Cases of child abuse and neglect rose slightly in 2001 for the second straight year, government officials said. The increase was not statistically significant but Prevent Child Abuse America, a private group in Chicago, worried that it could be the start of a new trend.
Officials could not say what accounted for the increase in 2001, the last year for which data are available. But Prevent Child Abuse America said the stress of an economic downturn and unemployment increases the risk of child abuse. About 1,300 children died of abuse or neglect in 2001, 100 more than in the previous year. Overall, 903,000 children were victimized, said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The good news is that the overall rate has not significantly increased from the previous year,” Horn said. “The bad news is that there were 903,000 children who were victims of abuse and neglect. That’s 903,000 too many.”
Confirmed maltreatment cases peaked in 1993, with 15.3 per 1,000 children. The rate fell for six straight years, hitting 11.8 per thousand in 1999. In 2000, there were 12.2 cases per thousand.
In 2001, there were 12.4 cases per thousand, or a total of about 903,000, the agency said.
Child protective service agencies across the country received 2.6 million referrals in 2001, according to data reported to the federal government. About a third of them were substantiated after investigation; the majority were cases of neglect. Of those that were confirmed, 59 percent suffered neglect, 18 percent were physically abused, 10 percent were sexually abused and 7 percent were psychologically maltreated. Consistent with previous years, 81 percent of perpetrators were parents.
Horn, joined by Sid Johnson, president of Prevent Child Abuse America, presented the results at a news conference in St. Louis, site of a national conference this week on child abuse and neglect. Both Horn and Johnson emphasized the importance of prevention, but they didn’t agree about how that should happen. Horn focused on the Bush administration’s proposed granting of modified block grants to states’ child welfare systems, an attempt to give states more flexibility and fewer rules. Under the plan, states could use some money now designated solely for foster care for abuse prevention. Johnson said he likes the flexibility but has reservations. He said he worries that the financial risk would shift from the federal government to the states “and ultimately children” if a capped five-year block grant was not enough to cover any spiraling of abuse cases.
Democratic legislation introduced Tuesday by U.S. Reps. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland and George Miller of California would, among other things, give performance bonuses and grants to states that improve their child welfare systems and improve the quality, training and retention of caseworkers.
Source: CBSnews.com

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313

Website Hoax Fans Virus Panic
02:01 PM Apr. 01, 2003 PT
HONG KONG — A teenager’s website hoax about a killer virus that is sweeping Hong Kong sparked panicked food buying and hit financial markets on Tuesday, forcing the government to deny it would isolate the entire territory. “We have no plan to declare Hong Kong an infected area,” Director of Health Margaret Chan told reporters. “We have adequate supplies to provide (for) the needs of Hong Kong citizens, and there is no need for any panic run on food.”
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, also known as SARS, has now affected almost 1,900 people in at least 12 countries, and 63 are believed to have died. Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous nation, reported its first three suspected cases on Tuesday. One official said one of the patients had died.
In Hong Kong, where 685 people are infected and 16 have died from the virus, authorities announced on Tuesday that they were taking more than 200 housing estate residents to isolation camps.
The fake website scare fueled dismay in the territory adjoining China’s Guangdong province, where the virus is believed to have originated four months ago. The hoaxer had copied the format of the public Internet portal of the Mingpao, one of Hong Kong’s leading newspapers, and posted a message saying the government would declare the city of 7 million “an infected place.” The daily said it had identified the teenager responsible. Police were investigating.
As the rumor spread, the Hong Kong dollar took a slight knock, and stocks fell for another day as investors calculated the loss to businesses in the tourism, airlines, property and retail sectors. As some supermarkets suddenly found frightened consumers pulling canned and preserved foods from their shelves, Hong Kong medical teams hunted for the reason why over 200 people in one apartment complex in urban Kowloon had fallen ill with SARS.
Protected by white surgical coats, caps, masks and gloves, investigators combed through the Amoy Gardens apartments, home to almost a third of all cases in Hong Kong. Residents there were under official quarantine. A woman outside, calling herself Mrs. Lee, spoke of her family inside: “My granddaughter is so young, and I don’t know how my daughter is doing. I visit them so often. I don’t know whether I have the disease, and I don’t want to infect others.” The government said it was evacuating more than 200 residents of Amoy Gardens to special isolation camps. Finding the cause of the Amoy Gardens outbreak is critical to proving whether the virus has mutated into an airborne plague, which could infect many more people much more quickly. Hong Kong found 75 new SARS cases on Tuesday. So far, doctors believe it has only spread by contact with infected patients, through coughing, spitting and sneezing. Authorities are racing to find carriers of the disease. Many Amoy Gardens residents had already fled their homes before the quarantine, and the government is looking for them.
Hong Kong was also looking for passengers on Thai Airways flight TG 606 from Bangkok to Hong Kong on March 29, the latest infected flight, after an 80-year-old passenger was diagnosed with SARS. Controlling the disease could be a major challenge in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of some 17,000 islands and 210 million people, many of whom live in poverty in urban slums or villages with few health services. But a spokesman for the World Health Organization said it was encouraging that Indonesia appeared to have detected the disease. “One way to contain the spread is to quickly identify cases. While it is bad news if it has arrived in Indonesia, it would be good news that the Indonesian authorities have identified it quickly,” said Iain Simpson, a WHO spokesman.
With Hong Kong so badly affected by the SARS outbreak, businessmen were trying to assess the possible economic damage. “If more and more housing estates are infected, this will bring Hong Kong to a standstill, and our economy will definitely contract,” said Alex Tang of Core Pacific-Yamaichi International. “We may have to lower our estimates for corporate earnings as well,” he added.
Malaysia has just reported a 3 percent drop in daily passenger arrivals at Kuala Lumpur international airport “seven days before and after” SARS was detected in the region. In and around Hong Kong, airline bookings are down 20 to 30 percent, and flights have been canceled. But the epidemic has meant roaring business for cleaning companies. In Hong Kong offices, teams of workers carrying tanks have been spraying and cleaning with disinfectants.
In Singapore, the Catholic Church drained containers of holy water at church entrances and switched to putting communion wafers in the hands of worshippers, instead of on the tongues. Some medical officials have issued pleas for calm. “I can’t say this often enough, the risk to the general public is extremely low,” said medical officer Sheela Basrur in Toronto. Canada has reported more than 120 cases of infection. The hope held out by doctors is that the virus’s detailed makeup will be pinpointed soon. Some victims have been successfully treated using antibodies in serum from recovered patients, which suggests they developed some immunity. The World Health Organization has now reported confirmed SARS cases in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, France, Ireland and Italy.
Source: Reuters, Wired News (medtech)

Possibly Related Posts:

• 7
• 110065392783662096
• 110047970893254307
• 110039372086761427
• 109990628803787313