CDC official: Virus hitting Midwest could be 'tip of iceberg'

[Ecoclimber]

FYI for immuneocompromised patients especially children:

CDC official: Virus hitting Midwest could be 'tip of iceberg'


(CNN) -- A respiratory virus is sending hundreds of children to hospitals in Missouri and possibly throughout the Midwest and beyond, officials say.

The unusually high number of hospitalizations reported now could be "just the tip of the iceberg in terms of severe cases," said Mark Pallansch, a virologist and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Viral Diseases.

"We're in the middle of looking into this," he told CNN on Sunday. "We don't have all the answers yet."

Ten states have contacted the CDC for assistance in investigating clusters of enterovirus -- Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.

Enteroviruses, which bring on symptoms like a very intense cold, aren't unusual. They're actually common. When you have a bad summer cold, often what you have is an enterovirus, he said. The season often hits its peak in September.

The unusual situation now is that there have been so many hospitalizations.

The virus is sending 30 children a day to a Kansas City, Missouri, hospital, where about 15% of the youngsters were placed in intensive care, officials said.

In a sign of a possible regional outbreak, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio are reporting cases with similar symptoms and are awaiting testing results, according to officials and CNN affiliates in those states.

In Kansas City, about 450 children were recently treated at Children's Mercy Hospital, and at least 60 of them received intensive hospitalization, spokesman Jake Jacobson said.

"It's worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care. I would call it unprecedented. I've practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I've never seen anything quite like this," said Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, the hospital's division director for infectious diseases.

"We've had to mobilize other providers, doctors, nurses. It's big," she said.

The Kansas City hospital treats 90% of that area's ill children. Staff members noticed an initial spike on August 15, Jackson said.

"It could have taken off right after school started. Our students start back around August 17, and I think it blew up at that point," Jackson said. "Our peak appears to be between the 21st and the 30th of August. We've seen some leveling of cases at this point."

No vaccine for virus

Read the rest of the article HERE.

 

[alex3619]

Sigh, we still need a vaccine to deal with this. We need effective drug treatments even more.

This is a real life experiment in progress. Due to not dealing with ME, pushing it under the rug so to speak, are we now going to see a new ME outbreak over much of the US? I hope not. We will know in six months, perhaps.

 

[Gingergrrl]

This is very scary! If they could take samples from these children early on and then see who goes on to develop ME, it would be such valuable information later. We need Dr. Chia or an enterovirus expert to take this on.

 

[Martial]

I thought we already had Entero Virus vaccines, and immuno therapy drugs for that class of virus? Or is it that you need to create them more specific for each strand? The thing about viruses is that they are so easily changing and adaptable that it is very difficult to prevent them completely. It is as if it has its own evolution cycle on its own accord.

 

[alex3619]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20109026

I could be wrong, I have not researched this in depth, but such vaccines are still in development.

As for drug therapies, our docs are using Chinese herbs and natural therapy not drugs for the most part. This tells the story I think. If anyone knows of an effective drug could you post a link?

 

[taniaaust1]

Seems there are so many things out there they havent got cures for. Im far more worried about the ebola situation right now. Its spread by 40% in only 3 weeks and there is now international concern it could go world wide. It seems most publically arent aware how bad it is, start researching that and it will shock you. (they've played it down a lot).

Oh and the WHO and CDC and they are lying about the fatality rates with the current outbreak of that, Doctors Without Borders keep reporting rates in the 70% range (latest report was 77% fatality rate. Doctors without borders are treating 2/3rds of the people going for help).

This virus is so deadly it is classifed as a bioweapon and can be spread not just throu body fluids including sweat but also throu fine DROPLETS (someone sneezing or coughing).

7 Sept
Africa: Obama commits 'Military Assets' for Ebola Health-Care Surge
Washington, DC — The Ebola crisis in west Africa is " a national security priority" for the United States, President Obama said in an interview on Saturday.

Two months ago, the American president said, he told his national security team that "we have to make this a national security priority" and that the United States must mobilize the international community to get resources to the region.

"U.S. military assets" are needed, he told Chuck Todd from the U.S. television network NBC, to compensate for the shortage of local public health workers and to support "a surge of public health workers and equipment and to set up isolation units. African governments "are making some significant progress," Obama said, adding that Americans shouldn't be concerned that "about the prospects of contagion here," in the short-term. But he said a failure to contain Ebola now could result in the virus becoming "more easily transmittable" and, as a result, "a serious danger to the United States."

That is an argument, he said, when he goes to Congress and says, "Let's give some public health aid to countries like Liberia, so that they can set up hospitals and nurses and vaccinations, et cetera," .

CHUCK TODD: Ebola, there's some anxiety in the country about it. Obviously, it's something that Africa's trying to get its hands around. But there is obviously anxiety in the United States. How concerned are you? And how concerned should Americans be?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Americans shouldn't be concerned about the prospects of contagion here in the United States, short term. Because this is not an airborne disease.

CHUCK TODD: I noticed you said short term, though.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I'm going to get to that. It's not an airborne disease, like the flu. You can only catch it through the transmission of bodily fluids where you have a strong public health infrastructure. Now, typically, there's one person who's identified, or a couple of people who are identified as having the virus. Isolate them. Run through a real tight protocol. And it-- it gets contained-- pretty effectively. The problem that we've got is in, right now, a limited portion of western Africa, primarily Li-- especially in Liberia but also Sierra Leone, Guinea-- (OVERTALK)

CHUCK TODD: A part of Africa that economically had been booming.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah. They-- they-- they--

CHUCK TODD: And all of a sudden, I mean, this is--

PRESIDENT OBAMA: They're-- they're-- they're making some significant progress. But they-- they didn't have a public health infrastructure. So now what we have is what should be a containable problem breaking loose because people aren't being quarantined properly. People aren't being trained properly. People aren't being trained properly. There aren't enough public health workers. So what I've said, and I said this two months ago to our National Security Team, is we have to make this a national security priority. We have to mobilize the international community, get resources in there. We're going to have to use--

CHUCK TODD: It's going to be a U.S. effort--

PRESIDENT OBAMA: As usual. And we're going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example isola-- isolation units and-- and equipment there, to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world. If we do that, then it's still going to be months before this problem is controllable in Africa. But it shouldn't reach our shores.

Now, here's the last point I'm going to make. If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates. It becomes more easily transmittable. And then it could be a serious danger to the United States.

This is an example of where U.S. leadership is important in dealing with crisis. But it's also an argument for why when-- when I go before Congress, and I say, "Let's give some public health aid to countries like Liberia, so that they can set up hospitals and nurses and vaccinations, et cetera," you know, sometimes, you know, the American public says, "Why are we wasting money on them?" Well, part of it is because, you know, when-- when we make those short-term investments now, it really pays of a lotta dividends in the future.

The full Meet the Press transcript

There are lies in that interview. He says they are making "significant progress", well that is a complete lie.

Its completely out of control in Liberia and Sierre Leone and they've said it is going to get much worst. Its currently bodies left for days on the streets, hospitals closed down, people being refused any care and sent away to die cause no room in treatment centres, doctors without borders can no longer provide the needed IVs to those they are treating as they are overwhelmed with too many Ebola victims. Even if they trace ebola people, they now have no where to put them so they are being left and infecting all their families and others. And Obama in that interview says they are making "progress" which is completely opposite to what the WHO is currently saying.

Those who do computerized predictions based on things known eg plane routes, people travelling from the infected countries, affect currently affected etc. It has a 25% chance of cases starting to show up in England by the end of this month. The thing is when it does, will that person be showing no symptoms at the time so just enter the country? It could easily end up like the situation in Nigeria (or far worst) in which they still are trying to control it even throu the person collapsed with it at an airport.

 

[Martial]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20109026

I could be wrong, I have not researched this in depth, but such vaccines are still in development.

As for drug therapies, our docs are using Chinese herbs and natural therapy not drugs for the most part. This tells the story I think. If anyone knows of an effective drug could you post a link?

No perhaps you are right, that is a huge shock though because enteroviruses have been such a prevalent and serious issue for quite some time. The only anti viral therapies I hear most given are for Mono, HIV, and Herpes. They really need to put more research into the immune system and better therapies because some of these drugs seem outdated. You would just think they would have more simple less adverse reaction chance for treatments, or at least a few things that are a bit more sophisticated. Herbs are one thing but having specific treatments that targets things in the root is how you cure it.

 

[alex3619]

Ebola related thread here: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/post-ebola-fatigue-syndrome.32383/

Ebola appears to be out of control. Decades of ignoring it, then suddenly there is a pandemic, though its not global yet. We need to curtail it in Africa. We need to shut down air travel from infected zones, and essential travel should have everyone put in mandatory quarantine when they come out.

President Obama is right about the need to support medical infrastructure in these areas. Things cannot be contained if you no capacity to contain them. People need treatment. Doctors need supplies.