[HN Gopher] Congo gov. says it's 'on alert' over mystery flu-lik...
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Congo gov. says it's 'on alert' over mystery flu-like disease that
killed dozens
Author : amichail
Score : 101 points
Date : 2024-12-05 20:06 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ctvnews.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ctvnews.ca)
| lawls wrote:
| Just in time for the holidays.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Epidemiological experts are in the region to take samples and
| investigate the disease, the minister said...
|
| "At the current stage, we cannot speak of a large-scale epidemic,
| we must wait for the results of the samples taken," health
| minister Kamba said regarding the mystery flu-like disease._
|
| Not really "on alert" then, just waiting to see if what we're
| seeing is novel or what.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's exactly what "on alert" means.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Hmmm. What is "ctvnews.ca"? I do not have any prior reason to
| trust this news source but would welcome some kind of hints.
|
| Edit: I show my ignorance of north of the border! It is a major
| Canadian news station. Thanks for the replies.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Major news org in Canada.
|
| If you prefer:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y83ejz7eeo.amp
|
| https://apnews.com/article/congo-mystery-disease-0df7a70c883...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna182804
| taysix wrote:
| One of the largest Canadian news broadcasters
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_News
| eddsolves wrote:
| It's fine to not know, but why not google and check? It's
| surely quicker than asking
| Kye wrote:
| I see people here in the US take The Beaverton seriously. I
| see people in Canada take The Onion seriously. It's hard to
| evaluate things like this from the outside.
| zymhan wrote:
| > It's hard to evaluate things like this from the outside.
|
| No, it's not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beaverton
| whalesalad wrote:
| I've seen this movie before.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outbreak_(film)
| foobarian wrote:
| Don't worry it's not airborne
| VeejayRampay wrote:
| where did you get that information?
| mort96 wrote:
| I think it's a joke? Probably referencing how everyone said
| that COVID-19 wasn't airborne and we were hyper focused on
| surface transmission when it is, in fact, airborne
| XorNot wrote:
| I love how everyone is a retrospective expert on COVID-19,
| claiming things were "obvious" about it when it was in
| fact, a brand new disease - characterized by in fact, never
| having been seen before and as a result was completely
| unknown.
|
| "It was airborne! They should've known that!" - like, how?
| You can't exactly grab a few hundred people, and run an
| experiment where you deliberately infect a bunch of them
| with a brand new, deadly disease to really pin down the
| transmission mechanism. And given that everyone _lost their
| minds_ over face masks, "wash hands" was some pretty mild
| initial advice while so much wasn't certain.
| foobarian wrote:
| It's Morgan Freeman's classic line from Outbreak. Young
| people I tell ya... :-)
| losteric wrote:
| So as I understand it:
|
| - Panzi is an isolated, hard-to-access area where malnutrition,
| prior epidemics, and seasonal flu have already weakened the
| population.
|
| - Poor healthcare infrastructure and delayed medical intervention
| have amplified deaths.
|
| - There is no evidence of rapid or widespread transmission. (see
| first point).
|
| - Samples have been retrieved for testing. At this point, there
| is no information on transmission vector (assuming it's even a
| disease)
| giarc wrote:
| 300+ cases is quite a few when you consider that many will not
| be reported.
| hvenev wrote:
| Despite the sad context, this seems refreshing -- an alert is
| raised due to a real and serious concern.
| cmriversepi wrote:
| I'm an epi professor and longtime HN lurker. I wrote a short
| essay yesterday about how to think about these mysterious
| outbreaks [1]. Briefly, the most common outcome is they are
| determined to be an endemic disease. Less likely is an emerging
| infectious disease. The most concerning possibility is something
| novel or highly unexpected.
|
| [1] https://caitlinrivers.substack.com/p/understanding-
| mysteriou...
| etiam wrote:
| Are you willing to hazard a guess how long it will take to get
| material analyzed to determine which of your categories this is
| in?
| cmriversepi wrote:
| The first round of test results should come in Friday or this
| weekend. The longer it goes undiagnosed, the more we tip into
| categories 2 and 3.
| etiam wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| So basically, if it's any of numerous reasonably well-known
| but very local diseases a fluid's probably going to go
| colored in some field test kit and say which one, else it
| could be something known (and often of known substantial
| concern for large-scale contagion) but too rare or
| understudied to have cheap robust quick tests yet so that
| has to be shipped to a real lab (probably with very high
| biosecurity rating), and if the lab doesn't recognize what
| they're seeing in their electron microscope and has to do
| fundamental research first to get a good biochemical
| profiling it's something truly expanding the boundaries of
| known infectious pathology?
|
| Something like that?
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