Cheiron

Well, with recent news of a possible SARS outbreak in the states, I've come to a few realizations, and a few questions.

First the realizations.

1. Sars is a virus, a vaccine likely will not be invented for atleast 5-20 or more years. Remember the 5 year aids vaccine anybody?

2. Sars is ineffectual against the young, IE those who are young and get it, experience symptoms so mild it's practically a cold. (checkout the WHO website for further info on that)

3. Sars is for all intents and purposes not going anywhere, the chances of us eradicating this dease are almost nil. (based on examination of our history with diseases, we have only ever managed to wipeout smallpox, and even that is supposedly on the comeback, According to shrub anyway, OOOH WMD)

4. By the above information it's logical to assume that Sars could be treated like a different version of chicken pox, IE get it when your a kid and never worry about it again.

And the questions

Based on this info, Should we just give up on trying to contain Sars and give up the 5% mortality rate, and chalk it up to a way to better our already crappy immune systems?

Chicken pox, is basically exactly the same, only chickenpox has been around for a while, so we all get it when we're young. So why not try and control Sars that way?

And my last question, Why are people so hyped up about Sars? It's barely 5% lethal for people of decent health, and less than that for children, the only people have anything to really worry about are the infirm, and thanks to modern medicine, the death rate only goes up to something like 10% anyway.

Cheiron

LymanLover

I would suggest the media attention because of the point of origin..

Plus when the disease first appeared on our radar, people really didn't know what it was. Add that to apparent Chinese government mishandling, and you have a fairly interesting and easily repeatable political sotry about authoritarian mismanagement..

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Cheiron
Well, with recent news of a possible SARS outbreak in the states, I've come to a few realizations, and a few questions.

First the realizations.

1. Sars is a virus, a vaccine likely will not be invented for atleast 5-20 or more years. Remember the 5 year aids vaccine anybody?

HIV mutates like crazy. SARS doesn't. A vaccine is much easier to develop. I do agree that it's going to be years, though.

3. Sars is for all intents and purposes not going anywhere, the chances of us eradicating this dease are almost nil. (based on examination of our history with diseases, we have only ever managed to wipeout smallpox, and even that is supposedly on the comeback, According to shrub anyway, OOOH WMD)

Smallpox in the wild is dead. Certain powers could reintroduce it, though. There's another that's on it's last legs, I forget what right now. WHO was aiming for a total kill in 2002 with a 3 year clock until it was declared gone. Last I heard (mid 2002) they knew they weren't going to make this because of the India/Pakistan squabbles and the last of it in the wild is in that area.
There is one big thing needed to be able to kill a disease--no animal hosts. Beyond that it must either be so serious that quarantine of all cases is accepted or else there must be a treatment.
Furthermore, social factors can interfere. Syphillis and ghonorea (sp?) effectively meet the qualifications (while there may be animal hosts there isn't transmission to speak of) but the social factors preclude an attempt.

Based on this info, Should we just give up on trying to contain Sars and give up the 5% mortality rate, and chalk it up to a way to better our already crappy immune systems?

15% mortality rate. It would certainly solve the social security problem, though--in that population it's over 50%. Given the swamped medical systems it would probably be a lot more lethal, also.

And my last question, Why are people so hyped up about Sars? It's barely 5% lethal for people of decent health, and less than that for children, the only people have anything to really worry about are the infirm, and thanks to modern medicine, the death rate only goes up to something like 10% anyway.

Only 5% is still 300 million people. That would make it the worst disaster the world has ever seen.

Your data is old, though. The real numbers would be in excess of a billion dead.

You could wipe it out for a lot less than this--cleanse all active infection areas with nuclear fire. Take out Guandong also to get whatever the animal host is.

Loren Pechtel

It *STILL* looks like China is lying. Their case counts are dropping too fast.

LymanLover

Loren,

I wouldn't doubt it.

echidna

There have been a few threads on this. Here�s one we prepared earlier �

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=48877

I haven�t seen recent figures, but earlier figures were quoting a 40% mortality for people infected over the age of 60. In itself that would dramatically change world demographics & unless you�re proposing a Logan�s Run scenario where people should die at a certain age, then this disease is worth fighting.

In your comparison to chicken pox, chicken pox has a dramatically lower mortality rate than SARS. Of children infected, only 0.1% require hospitalisation & significantly fewer again fail to recover. SARS is orders of magnitude worse.

Further, beyond simply the mortality rate, consider the hospitalisation rate of SARS. Whether one survives or not, no western medical system can cope with a widespread SARS epidemic, let alone the suffering which it would bring, even on survivors.

echidna

China is running scared because of the effect which SARS will have on the Olympics.

Cheiron

Yes, a great many more children with sars were hospitalized, but that was to put them under observation, to the best of my knowledge, none required medical attention, they were just observed. Thus the comparison to chickenpox in regards to children is correct, assuming my information is correct.

I don't have any stats on chickenpox in adults although conventional wisdom seems to be to get it while your young.

Upon further investigation it would seem that yes I was wrong in regards to the overall average, it is as you mentioned ~10%
http://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/2003_06_12/en/

On a side note, With the 2008 olympics in beijing rapidly approaching, it might be inevitable that Sars becomes the next measles.

[Activate Devils advocate]
And well, if the ~10% stays constant, which it won't if it gets into developing nations, that is 600 million dead, I hate to be heartless, but it's not like the world is running out of people. Biologically speaking, we are pretty much due for a rather large die off as a species anyway.
[/End Devils Advocate]

echidna

Umm, no. If control is truly lost on SARS, then the world has seen nothing like it since the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 - 19 which killed around 25 million people. And on initial figures, SARS promises to be at least an order of magnitude worse. Western life expectancy which has steadily been increasing towards 80, would likely drop to well less than 70. Maybe not too significant for those in their 20's, but I tend to think that even they will eventually be grateful if something is done now. And that's to say nothing of the crippling efect it would have on medical systems & the debiliating effect it would have on the general population. IIRC, a significant proportion of survivors are left with permanent respiratory damage.

Comparing it to measles, I think you're underestimating the significance of SARS.

Loren Pechtel

It should be long over by then. China certainly can squish it at least in the eastern part of the country.