Prometheus 6:

June 01, 2003

This is not something I wanted to read about

The thing abour SARS that bothered me was how a bad cold got all that attention because its official name ends in "Syndrome." Since AIDS, any disease that wants good press has to end with "Syndrome" (although I never understood why Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, paradoxically the senior disease, didn't get the attention it should have). Not to seem too harsh, but don't more people die of the flu than SARS in the same time frame?

But the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are at serious risk from SARS. And enough Africans are in that last category due to AIDS and starvation that another imported problem threatens to scour the continent of human life.

from SouthScan via AllAfrica.com

First Suspected SARS Cases in Kinshasa

Several persons suspected of being carriers of the SARS virus were put in quarantine last Sunday, May 25 at Kinshasa airport. The DR Congo's minister of health, L�onard Mashako Mamba, announced on Monday that all had come from Hong Kong via South Africa.

Medical experts have warned that an outbreak of SARS in an African country with limited health facilities could result in a sustained epidemic with worse effects than AIDS (see SouthScan v18/10).

Two Gambian citizens, a Congolese national and a unspecified number of Hong Kong Chinese traveled in the same flight from the Far East to Johannesburg with passengers who showed the symptoms of the disease, said Congolese health officials.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 6/1/2003 12:48:31 PM |

Posted by P6 at June 1, 2003 12:48 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/752

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