'Wash hands' plea as mystery disease hits NZ

[dArKeR]

New Zealand - The ministry of health has appealed for public calm while it investigates three mysterious sudden deaths in the South Island city of Dunedin.

Two men and a woman in their 40s and 50s dropped dead with bleeding into their lungs within about an hour of feeling ill.

Doctors ruled out all known likely causes, including the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus.

Samples have been sent to the United States Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, but director of public health, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, said there was no evidence of infection in the three deaths, which did not appear to be related.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1062138241736B252&set_id=1

Where's FBI/GOP hitman Hatfill?

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

[R Hickey]

1. Three sudden deaths does not make an epidemic.

However, if they had to isolate some geographical area, the South Island of NZ is pretty remote.

This sounds like a serial killer using some exotic poison, so far.

[LivingInTheBubble]

2. Sounds like testing to me.

Make a new batch, look for isolated or internationally linked place. Infect and test for potency and virulency respectively.

Reminds me of software testing too, e.g sobig.

[el_gato]

3. yep probably a trial run

I think these "mystery" diseases will be the
catalyst for total martial law here in the U.S.

[hang a left]

6. yep, kind of sounds a little

close to ebola, with the bleeding out

[nemo137]

14. oh, for fuck's sake.

please tell me that was sarcasm.

[The Sushi Bandit]

4. This is TRAGIC!!!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3520660&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=34730&cat=1013

http://www.odt.co.nz/

[jus_the_facts]

5. ..there was a 7.2 mag. EQ on South Island NZ on 8/21...

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/mag7.html


....maybe some sort of toxins released as a result? :shrug:

[hang a left]

8. yeah..hmmmmm.............right!

[jus_the_facts]

9. pardon me...but gotta go with logic first........

.....NOT falling for the *terra fear factor* :tinfoilhat: conspiracy theories concidering an EQ of that magnitude could release any sort of toxic poison...or pathogens into the enviornment.... :eyes:

[bikebloke]

11. Earthquakes a plenty

New Zealand has plenty of earthquakes. Especially around the straits separating the North and South Islands. A mate showed me a map of the area with wee circles charted on quake epicenters for a one month period. You'd think it was hit with a shot gun blast. yet all the time I spent sleeping on the ground, tenting, I felt nary a tremor.

[Capn Sunshine]

12. Perhaps the TRUE cause was....

GODZIRRA

[phgnome]

22. ??

What's that supposed to mean?

[oneighty]

7. Samples sent to US for testing

World class unidentified bug escapes from escape proof

bug testing center located in the good old USof A. Population

control plan works. It Works! It Works!

Hey. You never know.

180

[Frangible]

10. could be food poisoning

Just a thought.

[radwriter0555]

13. This SOUNDS like ebola...

which is interesting.

[MetaTrope]

15. Colette Matshimoseka redux

:tinfoilhat:

[bleedingheart]

16. according to what I have read on ebola it is far more

"visible" and highly contagious...so the doctors and everyone else involved would be ill or dead now.

[bicentennial_baby]

17. Nah

Ebola would cause hemmorhaging in the rest of the body, not just the lungs.

This does'nt sound infectious...Makes me wonder about chemical exposure, possibly wind-borne. They're saying these people did'nt know each other and lived several kilometers apart.

curious...

[HereSince1628]

20. Actually it sounds similar to a Hanta virus.

recall the 4-corners outbreak in the mid-90's, seemingly healthy people in the morning...dead by the evening

If I remember correctly inhalation was a common portal of entry... and since rodents pass the virus in their urine people living in or cleaning out places with lots of rodent activity are at high risk.


on edit: here is a link to info on Hantavirus

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hanta/hps/noframes/phys/technicalinfoindex.htm

[Snow]

24. Look up hemorraghic fevers,

both the African fevers (ebola, lassa, rift valley) and the hanta-type are in that group. Some of them cna be insect spread. Hanta in the 4 corners was actually a disease of the local rodents overpopulating because the weather brought on a bumper crop of pinyon nuts - the rodent poop in the ground dust carried the bug, and folks who went to gather pinyons got hanta along with. Hanta is closely related to Korean hemmoraghic fever, and Koreans eat pinyons also. The African fevers though, contrary to what reporters for splashy tabloids including AP wireservice claim, is not highly infectious or contagious - in fact, they're mostly spread by exhange of body fluids - blood usually - and in some quantity. Some of the African funeral customs help Ebola spread, and some sloppy African hospitals also encourage the spread. But it's a long way from being a highly infectious disease. People often confuse "really scary" and "high mortality rate" with really easy to catch.

[frustrated_lefty]

29. None of the "common" hemmorhagic viruses

target a single organ. Without seeing pathology reports, it's impossible to conjecture. However, if it were something like ebola, hanta, lassa, etc, you would expect to see damage evident within a range of tissues.

[goforit]

18. Yes.....This does not look good.

If W keeps killing off scientists like Kelly and Dr. Wiley
(whom jumped off the Memphis bridge during the Anthrax crimes),
then there won't be any left to clean up his messes.

[bicentennial_baby]

19. And the other

14....

[phgnome]

21. Conspiracy?

Looks like it to me but who am i to say?

[Tinoire]

23. Yepper.. A little bit of terror here.. A little bit of terror there..

Just as we predicted when they started knocking off the microbiologists, or rather the microbilogists started getting dumb all of a sudden and locking themselves up in freezers and whatnot.

FEMA anyone?

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

<snip>

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder

Things are going to slide ...

Leonard Cohen "The Future"

[Lori Price CLG]

25. Yes, NZ sent the virus back to the CDC, marked 'return to sender'.

I have to credit my friend Carol S. from Florida for that line.

BTW, I wonder what the 18 microbiologists were 'working on' when they died after Rumsfeld's anthrax attacks in 2001?

:)-Lori

[Fovea]

26. Sounds a bit like Spanish Flu.

Only quicker.

[Snow]

27. A very useful reference

to check up on whatever scary bug's making the rounds, is a branch off the famous "Martindale's Reference Desk";
http://www.martindalecenter.com/PHealth.html
You can find all the disease outbreak sites on there, and really get a good understanding of what's going on...

[MetaTrope]

28. Would there happen to be

any gold mines in the vicinity?

(...wow, the story in the above link was archived in a dozen sites on the Web a year ago. It's been almost completely purged since then...wonder how long the Deja News copies will last?)

[Snow]

30. But they got it wrong -

Again, Ebola, Lassa, Marburg, Rift Valley are not "highly contagious" -
here's a good reference:
http://www.phls.org.uk/topics_az/deliberate_release/pdf/VHF_guidelines.pdf

and here's a quote
"1.2.1 Person to person transmission
All four viruses are transmitted in the same way. Virus is transmitted through direct contact with virus-infected body fluids such as blood, saliva, vomitus, stools and possibly sweat. Cross infection with partially sterilised needles is associated with a high infection
risk and a high fatality rate. Marburg, Ebola and Lassa virus have been shown to be present in the genital secretions of convalescents several weeks after illness; the potential for transmission to sexual contacts in the early convalescence phase has been determined
for both Marburg and Lassa fever.

There is no evidence that close personal contact with a non-febrile, non-symptomatic, infected individual during the incubation period or convalescence results in transmission. Previous epidemics in Africa have resulted largely from secondary spread to health care workers and family contacts caring for the ill. Re-use of needles and syringes, inadequate barrier techniques, and unhygienic practices are the major routes for nosocomial transmission among hospital staff and patients. Contact with the body or body fluids of the dead in customary preparation for burial is also a recognised source of infection.
These viruses are not airborne, but maybe transmitted by aerosols of body fluids from infected patients if the aerosols come into contact with mucous membranes."

The same article also talks about why these bugs are generally really a bad fit for bioterror spread.....