"Fear bio-terrorists may spread plague: Diplomats pull out of Angola, ravaged by Ebola-like Marburg," from World Net Daily, :
While the death toll continues to rise in Angola from an outbreak of the deadly Ebola-like Marburg disease, there are intelligence reports that Islamic terrorists might deliberately infect themselves to spread the plague to the West, according to a report in the premium, online, intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.Information collected on the disease is behind a decision by a number of diplomatic delegations to pull out of the country, according to G2 Bulletin.
At least 200 cases of Marburg have been recorded, making this the worst ever outbreak. The death toll stands at 184.
Reports suggest the numbers are much higher in remote areas. Diplomats were advised not to travel into suspected Ebola areas.
Among the concerns is the possibility terrorists on a suicide mission might deliberately travel to Marburg-infested areas and then travel back to the capital of Luanda on their way to the West....
The Marburg outbreak has claimed a record number of lives, overtaking the earlier peak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola's neighbor.
Attacks on health workers have forced the United Nations to suspend essential work in a region of Angola devastated by an outbreak of the Marburg virus, an Ebola-like condition that inflicts deadly internal bleeding....
This is the scenario I have talked about with my friends and family. We all agreed that this is the way they would try bio-terror. I thought it would be small-pox, though. Good enough reason to stop all middle easterners from entering the western hemisphere.
I don't know if we can do anything to stop them if they are willing to die with a disease as hideous as ebola.
Can you spread what you already are?
Carolyn2-
Ebola is too hard to spread for much real effect, other than psychological.
Smallpox would be the tool of choice for these nutcases. Let's hope our Russian friends know what's (left) in their freezers.
No doubt some idiot might try that. Wonder if they realize just how miserable it is to get to heaven in this manner. At least bombers go quick. This is not bravery, it's lunacy. Carolyn , above is right, if they are willing to die in this grotesque way, they are capable of anything. Fortunatly the number of these kinds of fanatics is small, but even then they can do a lot of damage. Those with everything to gain (paradise) and nothing to lose (we love death), generate a certain kind of power. This power is not infallible and can be overcome, but first it has to be recognised. Most of those who post here
recognise this, but thats not enough. This site, others like it and some bloggers are the icebreakers of information that break up centuries of mis-information. Readership/membership is growing. Information is power. When Islam crumbles, withdraws it's claws, and retreats to the sancuary of it's cave/cage, it will be the internet that did it.
I can prove this to myself by my own experience, and yours. How many of you would know what you know of these subjects if you had no internet? Amazing isn't it?
The internet has given me access to information that I would not have gotten otherwise. This site is a perfect example( thank you R.S.). For some strange reason that I have never figured out, the maintenance of freedom requres vigilance...so remain vigilant...and safe...swami
Here is some interesting reading on the subject:
http://www.pathlights.com/onlinebooks/chapter5.htm
"premium, online, intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin"
Punctuation problems much?
Actually most folk alive today have a biologically evolved immunity to small pox Big Sleep.
The native Americans had no immunity to it, that's why the early settlers were able to wipe them out with INFECTED blankets. Infected because small pox only caused discomfort, if contracted at all, in the English and Spanish populations of America. The Natives who survived the introduced plaque also had a biological immunity to it, which they in turn passed on to their descendants.
Small pox is not a threat at all. But it can sure be used to whip up mass hysteria.
If Smallpox was so universally deadly, then all of those infected by it in the English colonies of America would have died and there would have been no westward expansion or American Revolution.
What was the infectious rate and death rate from small pox among the English colonists and conquistadores, on the other hand the disease virtually wiped out whole populations of natives, but those who survived had either developed a biological immunity to it, or had one as a mutated gene.
Like sickle cell anemia, a troubling and often disabling condition it is also an evolved immunological response against malaria.
Chicken pox and mumps are childhood diseases and an uncomfortable inconvenience for us moderns, but they were death dealing plaques to our ancestors.
How Marburg is spread Spread of the virus between humans has occurred in a setting of close contact, often in a hospital. Droplets of body fluids, or direct contact with persons, equipment, or other objects contaminated with infectious blood or tissues are all highly suspect as sources of disease.
Seems that it is spread very much like HIV.
Actually I'm more worried about the 1921-1922 Influenze strain that wiped out millions around the globe. A few years ago scientists dug up four bodies, interred in Norwegiean Permafrost, of these flu victims, took cultures from their lungs and took them back to a laboratory. If they get loose or terrorists get ahold of those cultures (and security is abysmal in labs, research departments, universities, pharmaceutical industries) there will be hell to pay.
I can even see a pharmaceutical springing loose a virus, so they can make money from the vaccine or antidote they have already developed.
Ebola is too hard to spread for much real effect, other than psychological.
Smallpox would be the tool of choice for these nutcases. Let's hope our Russian friends know what's (left) in their freezers.
Posted by: BigSleep at April 12, 2005 11:42 AM
Agreed, BigSleep.
Smallpox would definitely be the agent of choice, since it affects only humans, leaving the infrastructure intact, is highly contagious, and is a virus that has been examined for its potential as a bioweapon for a very long time.
It is thought that smallpox arose in the human population around five thousand years ago. At that time, it is estimated that the mortality rate was about 90%. That decreased to about 40%-60% mortality in the days before Jenner's discovery of the immunizing properties of cowpox.
We eliminated smallpox as a problem through universal vaccination; the last vaccinations were given in 1982. With few exceptions, no one born after that time has been vaccinated.
Now for a few clinical facts about smallpox: It is highly contagious, and the virus itself is present through each phase of the disease, from the first sign of vesicles on to pustules and crusts. It is found in these vesicles etc., as well as nasal secretions, urine and feces.
It can be spread by direct contact with sick people, but since the virus survives drying, it can also be spread via contact with things that the sick person has handled, such as clothing, doorknobs, the ever popular toilet seat, etc.
It can also be spread by people who don't appear sick, from those who have a mild case because they were vaccinated years before, or by those who die from the most severe (hemorrhagic) form, where the patient is so sick that he dies quickly, even before the characteristic rash appears.
Since we stopped vaccinating in 1982--and there were many of us who thought that was a really terrible idea, since at least six laboratories around the world had supplies of virus in accordance with international agreements--we are now confronted with the problem of 1) previously vaccinated populations whose immunity is either non-existent or greatly diminished, and 2) a virgin population, subject to all the pre-Jenner problems of smallpox.
In essence, the entire U.S. population is subject to the possibility of a deathrate approaching 50%, with the other 50% able to survive, but still being very ill for a protracted period.
Smallpox has an incubation period of about 2 weeks. The onset of illness is very sudden, with high fever, chills, and prostration that is comparable to a very bad case of 'flu. Patients experience headache, backache, and muscle pains. Little kids can have unremitting vomiting and even seizures. This period, before the appearance of the classic rash, is called the "prodromal" period. Skin lesions appear, but they don't look like the common, easily recognized rash of smallpox.
Then the classic picture of smallpox appears, after about two days of "prodrome." The rash, which at this point is the little vesicles, appears, mostly on the forehead, temples, and around the mouth. At the same time, the fever drops, and the patient actually feels better for a couple of days. The rash spreads very quickly to the scalp, ears, neck, arms, and hands, and about 24 hours later, it is seen on the trunk. In the worst cases, the rash covers the whole body, and is especially pronounced on the palms, soles, and in the armpits. Some of the lesions become very deep, forming pits in the skin.
By day three, all the lesions have a uniform appearance. They look a bit like pimples filled with clear liquid instead of pus, with a pink halo around the base. The lesions can be so numerous that they join together.
About one to two days after that, all the lesions become pustules at the same time, and the fever returns with a vengeance, again with prostration. The face swells up, and there's a lot of pain. The lesions can now be seen inside the mouth, in the throat, on the larynx, in the vagina, in the opening of the man's urethra, and inside the rectum.
By about day 8 or 9, most of the lesions have passed their peak. Many have ruptured, and have begun to shrink. The skin has a lot of pus with crusting. The skin begins to shed all over the body, and patients often lose their hair, eyebrows, and fingernails.
For the roughly 50% who make it this far, healing takes place over the next two weeks or so.
The death rate, as is common in serious illnesses, is highest among young children, the debilitated, and older people. These people are often the victims of the so-called "hemorrhagic" small pox. The blood factors that help control bleeding are diminished because the liver, where they are produced, has been damaged. Then bleeding begins to occur in the lesions that have coalesced into larger lesions. Skin gangrene then occurs, and damage to the eyes and ears from local lesions is seen.
The death rate where the rash is discreet is about 5%; where the rash is confluent, it is about 60%; where it is hemorrhagic, it is about 80%.
An excellent level of protection occurs about 8 days after vaccination, and a high level of protection continues for about three years. There is significant protection for about ten years, and mortality is significantly reduced for even longer periods.
The best age to be vaccinated is between 1-2 years. The discomfort is least at that age, limited primarily to a discrete, itchy, pustular collection of lesions at the vaccination site. Fever may occur, but is usually low.
As the patient's age increases, the discomfort does too. Adults being vaccinated for the first time can be very sick puppies, but recovery is universal, and they have the benefit of immunity to an often fatal disease.
I must say, though, that the sickest patient I ever saw was the younger brother of a little boy who had been vaccinated. The scab dried up and fell off the older child. The younger one promptly picked up the scab and ate it. He developed generalized vaccinia, and was brought into our infectious disease ward and kept under sedation for several days, until the problem had retreated enough for him to tolerate it while alert. Poor baby! He did just fine, though, and didn't need his own vaccination a few months later.
Well, anyway, that's the story of smallpox in a nutshell. Nasty stuff, and more virulent viruses have been developed.
Truly, it is the bioweapon of choice. During those first few days, a single infected person could walk around spreading it, and it would be very easy to collect enough virus-laden debris to spread around on everything from doorknobs to clothing to wreak a lot of havoc.
The pharmaceutical companies do not engage in the spread of disease for the purpose of making profits.
I hope our government (or whoever makes these decisions) will consider making vaccine widely available. We have been warned.
And don't forget that there are viruses like the Asian bird flu that could in the future evolve into something far more transmittable and leathal (e.g. become infectious via transmission through the air alone) and so could be used in a Jihadis arsenal.
The key here (from the Jihadis point of view) is that when the bird flu virus infects someone the death rate is near to 100 percent. I think even small pox has a much lower death rate. Scientists are working on a vaccine for this virus but like aids it seems to mutate very quickly.
giaour/ cubed/ obl r us-
The 'bird flu' now in Asia is a cousin of the "Spanish Influenza" that killed more worldwide than WW I did. The 1918-1919 flu apparently came from a chicken farm in the U.S. midwest, spreading though an infected soldier, who then unknowingly infected others at his base, and it then traveled with further transports of soldiers being shipped to different bases and ports, and got to Europe and Asia and everywhere in-between through troop ships, cargo transports, etc.
A type of flu as virulent as that pandemic could pop up naturally in Asia at any time (poor sanitation, overcrowded cages, interspecies feeding habits), and be as deadly in that region, since there is no vaccine yet.
As to any 'natural immunity' acquired to smallpox, the 300,000,000 dead in the 20th century from it seem to indicate that this virus is adept at keeping ahead of our immune response in frightening strength.
Not to mention any genetic manipulations added by biological terrorists.
It spreads fast, kills fast, and the only bright spot is that we have a vaccine, although how many millions of doses are ready to go is unclear. (The CDC doesn't list numbers stored.)
Let's hope the intelligence services can stop carping with Congress long enough to start killing the morbid maniacs -wherever they find them- who are brewing this possible plague.
The Muslims have already spread a disease - its called Islam and has affected the brains of millions who live within our borders.
Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain
AP Headlines
By EMMA ROSS and MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writers
Scientists around the world were scrambling to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after a nearly 50-year-old killer influenza virus was sent to thousands of labs, a decision that one researcher described as "unwise."
Nearly 5,000 labs in 18 countries, mostly in the United States, were urged by the World Health Organization to destroy samples of the dangerous virus because of the slight risk it could trigger a global outbreak. The labs received the virus from a U.S. company that supplies kits used for quality control tests.
"The risk is low and we've taken appropriate action," said Dr. Nancy Cox, chief of the influenza branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Her counterpart at WHO, Klaus Stohr, agreed but said, "If someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high, and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible."
The germ, the 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" strain, killed between 1 million and 4 million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.
The WHO said Tuesday that there have been no reports of infections in laboratory workers associated with the distribution of the samples and that "the risk for the general population is also considered low."
Still, the decision to send out the strain was described by Stohr as "unwise" and "unfortunate."
The CDC learned Friday that test kits prepared by Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati contained the virus. The company makes kits for at least four groups that help labs do proficiency testing, which involves identifying viruses to check a lab's quality controls or to acquire certification.
The largest of those groups, the College of American Pathologists, said it had sent 3,747 kits to various labs starting last year and ending in February.
Dr. Jared Schwartz, an official with the pathology college, said Meridian was told to pick an influenza sample and chose from its stockpile the deadly 1957 strain, which it had received from a "germ library" in 2000.
Other test kit providers also used the strain. Schwartz identified them as Medical Lab Evaluators, the American Association of Bioanalysts and the American Association of Family Practitioners.
Officials at Meridian could not immediately be reached for comment late Tuesday after business hours.
Most of the labs that received the test kits were in the United States, Stohr said. Fourteen were in Canada and 61 samples went to labs in 16 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America, according to the WHO.
Some of the labs outside the United States have already incinerated their samples, he said, and WHO hoped the rest of the vials would be destroyed by Friday. The health agency would not name the other countries whose labs received the samples.
The kits contain blind samples that labs must correctly identify to pass the test. The influenza virus included in the kits typically is one that is currently circulating or has recently circulated.
A Canadian laboratory detected the 1957 pandemic strain on March 26 in a sample that was later traced to a test kit.
The WHO notified health authorities in countries that received the kits and recommended that all samples be destroyed. The College of American Pathologists asked labs to incinerate the samples immediately and confirm their actions in writing.
The virus' presence in thousands of labs focused fresh attention on the safe handling of deadly germs -- an issue that led to toughened U.S. rules after anthrax was sent in the mail in 2001, killing five Americans.
Cox said officials strongly doubt someone deliberately planted the dangerous germ. "It wouldn't be a smart way to start a pandemic to send it to laboratories because we have people well trained in biocontainment," she said.
But Stohr said the test kits are not the only supplies of the 1957 pandemic strain sitting in laboratories around the world. "The world really has to think what routine labs should be doing with these samples they have kept in the back of their fridges," he said.