ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH ACUTE FLACCID MYELITIS?
Just when I thought I was going to get ahead of the game, the game got ahead of me. I wrote the blog below earlier in 2019 regarding the latest new virus - Acute Flaccid Myelitis. Before I could post it, I was introduced this week to the latest star of the virus family, the Coronavirus, and it has nothing to do with the overconsumption of the local Mexican beer. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as pneumonia and can cause severe acute respiratory distress, kidney failure, and even death. We are now faced with yet another deadly virus that is new and becoming a major health threat!
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The race to the finish is well underway. Another, previously little known virus has reared its ugly head - the Acute Flaccid Myelitis virus. It seems that a new and deadly disease or virus makes an appearance every couple of years. This year I have been made aware of Acute Flaccid Myelitis. This rare but serious disease affects the nervous system, causing muscles and reflexes to suddenly become weak. Experts haven’t found a cause and can’t explain why the illness recently has proliferated.
Over the past thirty to forty years we have been threatened by numerous new diseases that I had never heard of before. A couple of years ago a Zika virus infection contracted during pregnancy caused some infants to be born with microcephaly and other congenital malformations.
Ebola virus disease (EVD), is another severe, often fatal illness in humans that was first discovered in 1976. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Thousands of Africans have died from the disease and is currently rearing its ugly head again in the Congo.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) discovered in China in 2003 has spread to other parts of the world and there is no cure or preventative vaccine. The viruses of the world appear to be gaining an upper hand over their human victims. In the past twenty years, we have had outbreaks of bird flu, the swine flu, Hantavirus and a veritable alphabet soup of H1N1 flus and all of its mutant brothers and sisters.
The Grand Daddy of all recent deadly virus-driven diseases has been AIDS. Recent data shows that there are over 30 MILLION people infected with AIDS and over a million more have died from the disease. The first case was reported in 1980.
All of the above diseases have only reared their heads in the past 40 years. As the world’s population grows, with a projection of 11 billion by 2100, the number of new diseases can be expected to grow even more quickly. Often the majority of new population growth is in poorer countries where sanitation and healthy environments are often minimal, contributing to the evolution of new diseases. People travel more often to more places and thus there is more global opportunity to spread new viruses.
I feel the number and severity of so many new diseases is very alarming. The emergence of a new super virus seems to be occurring every two or three years. (Perhaps this should now read two or three months!) I am not sure where it will end but I do believe that ultimately the virus will be the last “man” standing, and when they look around, there will not be a Homo Sapien in sight! Am I just being paranoid or a realist?
3 comments:
Yikes Ken. Having just come back from a week of visiting settlements on the Amazon, I see no sanitation, children dying of parasites from the water they are drinking from the Amazon. Villagers are deficating wherever it serves them and when the rains come, it is all washed into the Amazon. Do I need to say more? There is so much that can be done for so little cost but the issue is so big, it is almost overwhelming.
We just put in two rainwater huge cylinders to catch rainwater and a bit of chlorine added. One project after two years of their village growing vegetables in high beds, washing with only this water and drinking only this water and cleaning any standing water indicate they have had no malaria in two years. A bit at a time.
For all the noise associated with Ebola, more people were dying of malaria than EVD.
I'm afraid the greatest threat to humanity is not viruses; it's stupidity. I used to think it was ignorance, but not any more. Measles is easily avoided with vaccinations and we all have been told this. It's not a lack of knowledge or education; people have been told about vaccinations for such things as measles, hepatitis, tetanus, polio, etc. But they continue to believe, in the absence of any evidence, that a measles vaccination may be harmful. Because some idiot on FB or Instaspam or on a day time chat show (btw, who would take medical advice from someone called Dr Oz - When did he stop calling himself the Wizard of... do you think he get is medical degree from the University of Somewhere Over the Rainbow? It's just down the yellow brick road I think, just past the Octopuses Garden - in the shade.) Measles vaccinations save lives. About 60 kids died in Samoa late last year simply because they didn't get the vaccination. And sure enough, there was someone there 'preaching' that measles vaccinations were dangerous. Why hasn't he been arrested and locked up? Oh wait, he has. But why weren't the parents arrested and locked up too? Those kids didn't die of measles - they died because of their parents' stupidity.
I might add that we all know that cigarette smoking is bad for our health too, and many continue.
On our school's admission documents we ask parents to indicate what vaccinations have been given. Most leave it blank. Recently a student said she'd had a flu vaccination, but not been vaccinated for measles. The reason? She said she had to show that she had had a flu vaccination to get a visa for a trip to the US. (Why would you want to go there?)
As soon as an effective treatment for coronavirus is discovered, someone else will come up with a crack pot idea that the treatment is a plot by the Cubans to sterilise the masses or to spread autism around the world... no evidence required, just an Instaspam account with 200,000 followers. Zuckerberg and his filth won't do anything to stop it, because of freedom of speech and their greed.
Did you read this? The richest 100 people own more than the poorest 4.6 billion people? Actually, it's not quite accurate, but you know, on the internet no one hears you lie.
https://time.com/5768346/billionaires-wealth/
Good health everyone. :)
The only problem with your premise that stupidity is a greater danger than a virus, Is that the individual can not pass the blame for their own stupidity on to someone else. They must accept that they can not blame their shortcoming on someone or something else. They must accept that they are the reason for their own uneducated actions. Accepting personal responsibility is not a very common quality - especially for the stupid! Perhaps we may eventually discover a virus-effective treatment. There is no stupidity-effective treatment, unfortunately.
Have a great day Peter.
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