The UN's FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) have announced that they believe rinderpest, an frequently fatal viral disease that affects livestock and wild ruminants, to have been eliminated. This is only the second virus, after smallpox, to have been wiped out.
The BBC and
the Guardian discuss the story in brief, and
Science has a slightly more in-depth look at it. The FAO themselves have put up an
interesting history of the disease and its treatment.
posted by Dim Siawns
on Oct 15, 2010 -
17 comments
Is H5N1 flu transitioning to a human-to-human illness? Recent
reports of familial clusters suggest that it may be, though there are certainly other possible explanations, such as families living in environments contaminated by virus-laden bird feces. On the other hand, it would seem that epidemiologists are growing increasingly interested in the possibility that these clusters are indicative of human-to-human transmissions. Further, the virus may be inching towards being asymptomatic, which isn't as good as it sounds: if people can carry the virus and transmit it to others without showing symptoms, it will be very difficult to impossible to tell who is a vector and highly difficult to control any emerging epidemic.
posted by chakalakasp
on Dec 2, 2005 -
23 comments
SARS much more deadly than first estimated. Analysis of the latest statistics on the global SARS epidemic reveals that
at least 10 per cent of people who contract the new virus will die of the disease. The low death rates of about four per cent cited until now by the World Health Organizatio n and others are the result of a statistical difficulty, well known to epidemiologists, that hampers the early analysis of new disease outbreaks. [...] A better current estimate of the deadliness of SARS may be the number of deaths as a proportion of resolved cases. Those numbers for Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore are
15.8, 18.3 and 13.7 per cent.
posted by Bletch
on Apr 25, 2003 -
68 comments
Four out of 10 people mistakenly believe it is possible to get HIV by sharing a drinking glass or being coughed or sneezed on by an infected person. The survey, released Thursday, was conducted by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's scary that so many people are still so ignorant of what
causes HIV-AIDS," said Marty Algaze, a spokesman for
the Gay Men's Health Crisis. "Almost 20 years into this
epidemic, it's disturbing that people think you could still
get it from casual contact."
posted by jhiggy
on Dec 1, 2000 -
3 comments
