EV71 Outbreak In China Sparks Fears For Olympics

OMNIpotusCOM writes "CNN is reporting an outbreak of Enterovirus 71 (or EV71), that has affected more than 3700 children and killed over 20, is creating concern for the visitors and athletes expected for the Beijing Olympics in August. The virus can cause 'poliolike paralysis,' according to the article."

That's okay...

[Tablizer]

...it only affects Tibetans {ducks head}
     

Journalist Makes Baseless Speculation, News At 11

[rsmith-mac]

From Wikipedia, Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease [wikipedia.org] the disease that results from this virus:

HFMD usually affects infants and children, and is quite common. It is highly contagious and is spread through direct contact with the mucus, saliva, or feces of an infected person. It typically occurs in small epidemics in nursery schools or kindergartens, usually during the summer and autumn months. The usual incubation period is 3-7 days. It is extremely uncommon in adults, however still a possibility. Most adults have strong enough immune systems to utterly defeat the virus...

And outbreaks in April alone:

1. Outbreak at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA, USA 2. Outbreak in South Portland, ME, USA Infection may have spread to an isolated section of Westbrook, ME, as well 3. Outbreak in Auckland, NZ. 4. Reported in Santa Clara County, California, USA 5. Late March - mid April: 2,600 cases reported in Singapore, no serious cases; 1000 cases reported in the week of 14 - 20 April.[1] 6. Late April: it is reported in the chinese website (sina.com.cn) that in Fuyan, Provinz Anhui, 19 dead. 7. Late April: San Francisco, CA nursery schools.

Now I'm not saying it's of absolutely no concern, but it's not as if there's some massive killer disease rampaging through China. The average adult has nothing to worry about, and even in children the effects are rather mild with appropriate medical care. This will burn itself out well before the Olympics, and in a year no one will remember it; use some common sense here. If you want to avoid the Olympics (or encourage others to do so) there are much better reasons than this.

Re:Always China

[v1]

virus crossover can occur when one species can be infected by viruses from more than one other species. Chickens can get avian type viruses. Humans can get human type viruses. Pigs, lucky them, can get some of both. And in china it's common to raise pigs and chickens together.

Perfect breeding ground for avian-to-human crossover viruses. And crossover evolution works a lot faster than regular evolution.

Re:Should I be scared ...

[piojo]

You're right, as was the poster above you. My math was dead wrong. But this isn't:

Driving 9125 times with a 0.005% chance of death each time, the probability of living is
0.99995^9125 = 0.63

So, you've got a 37% chance of dying. This is obviously still not the correct percentage. If we say that there is only a 0.0005% chance of dying, the calculation yields a 4.4% chance of death. Still too much. So, even though I suck at math, driving is more than 1000x safer than an activity which causes 0.5% death.

And you're right that I'm making gross simplifications about what types of driving I'm considering, but the original AC post said "I wonder if he's ever stepped into a car?"

Re:Journalist Makes Baseless Speculation, News At

[OMNIpotusCOM]

Try harder, read the whole sentence on CNN, and make sure that your source doesn't end up proving you wrong.

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) [wikipedia.org]

Enterovirus 71 (EV71)infection may be asymptomatic or may cause diarrhea, rashes, and hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). However, EV71 also has the potential to cause severe neurological disease. To date, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of host response to EV71 infection. It is stated in [4] that: "EV71 infection led to increases in the level of mRNAs encoding chemokines, proteins involved in protein degradation, complement proteins, and proapoptotis proteins."

"Enterovirus 71 (EV71), one of the major causative agents for hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), is sometimes associated with severe central nervous system diseases. In 1997, in Malaysia and Japan, and in 1998 in Taiwan, there were HFMD epidemics involving sudden deaths among young children, and EV71 was isolated from the HFMD patients, including the fatal cases. The nucleotide sequences of each EV71 isolate were determined and compared by phylogenetical analysis. EV71 strains from previously reported epidemics belonged to genotype A-1, while those from recent epidemics could be divided into two genotypes, A-2 and B

Re:Should I be scared ...

[bonhomme_de_neige]

His/her maths is almost correct (i.e. wrong, but not enough to make his point invalid).

The calculation above doesn't take into account the fact that to die in a car crash on your second day (e.g. 5th drive), implies you already didn't die on the first day, so the actual chance of that is p*(1-p)^4, where p = 0.005% or whatever.

A quick spreadsheet exercise projecting this for 9125 drives (10 years @ 2.5 drives per day) shows the probability of death during the 10 years is 36.6%.

Another way to approach the problem that doesn't need either a spreadsheet or a geometric progression trick is to say that the probability of dying in this way during the 10 years is (1 - probability of not dying in that time). The probability of doing all that driving and surviving is (1 - p)^(9125), which = 63.4% when p = 0.005. (1 - 63.4%) = 36.6% giving the same answer as above.

However this doesn't change the fact that piojo's argument is 100% correct that the chance of death per drive must average lower than 0.0005%, as the 36% per 10 years rate is way too high.