4th death from mystery illness?
06/10/2008 10:07 - (SA)

Gauteng hospitals 'on high alert'

Health scare in Gauteng

Haemorrhagic diseases

Johannesburg - A fourth person is believed to have died of a mystery flu-like illness in Johannesburg, the health department said on Monday.

The latest victim had been a cleaner at the Morningside Medi-Clinic.

"The cleaner fell ill over the weekend and was admitted to Leratong Hospital on the West Rand for treatment, but died early on Monday," said spokesperson Fidel Hadebe.

Three other people presented the same flu-like symptoms at the hospital since September.

The first patient, a Zambian woman arrived at the Morningside Medi-Clinic with flu-like symptoms on September 12. She was treated for tick-bite fever and other potential infections but died two days later.

Tests were not conclusive of any particular disease including viral hemorrhagic fevers.

A Zambian paramedic who had accompanied her into the country died last week and a nurse at the Morningside Clinic died on Sunday.

Cleaner 'a sickly person for a long time'

However, Hadebe said the cleaner had apparently been a very sickly person for a long time and had been in and out of hospitals.

"Her health hasn't been that well, but various tests and post-mortems will be conducted to determine the cause of death.

Those who visited Zambia in the last month and are experiencing the same flu-like symptoms were urged to immediately go to their nearest hospital.

Hadebe said the department was only involved in the testing process and it was up to the private facility to decide on what course of action to take regarding possible quarantining.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2405028,00.html

This is scary stuff......

What I think deserves looking into as well is why a worker at a relatively top end clinic like Morningside needs to get treatment for something so potentially lethal and contagious at a government sponsored cesspool like Leratong!

I know a guy who supplies meat on contract for South African jails and if I had my choice I'd rather be an intern at Pretoria Central than Leratong Hospital...

Very scary stuff.

Im leaving in two weeks to hunt in the valley.
Look like i need to take more brandy to kill all the germs.

luan

quote:

Originally posted by luan:

Look like i need to take more brandy to kill all the germs.

luan

Now there's an African solution to an African problem....

Stephen

You have any better medicine i can use.Because sure as hell im not going to cancel the hunt.Maybe a bit more G&T and a good dose of fat biltong.

Luan

luan

I don't know what you do for a living, but in a perfect world you'd be a physician....

MY physician

Stephen

Cheers im only a crazy guy needs to hunt in zambia once a year to keep me sane from my business.AND THE TOWN OFF BURGERSFORT

Luan,

Enjoy take a bottle of Mampoer and remember to take a lot of pictures.

Mystery illness not airborne, says hospital
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Oct 06 2008 13:55



The flu-like illness that has killed four people in Johannesburg is not airborne but is contracted through bodily fluids, said a spokesperson at the Morningside Medi-Clinic on Monday.

"The disease is transferable through bodily fluids and is not airborne. We want to ensure that there's no panic in the broader public ... There is no outbreak at the hospital. We are currently don't have patients with the same symptoms," said regional marketing manger Malinda Pelser.

Tests were not conclusive of any particular disease, including viral haemorrhagic fevers.

Pelser said hospital staff who had been in contact with the four people who died of the illness were being continuously monitored.

"We are monitoring those who treated the four patients who passed away, but it's in the hands of the Department of Health to trace and monitor families and other people," she said.

The latest victims at the hospital were a cleaner and a nurse -- both died on Sunday. However, Pelser said, the cleaner was not employed by the hospital, but by an outsourcing company.

Another, a Zambian woman who arrived at Morningside Medi-Clinic with flu-like symptoms on September 12, was treated for tick-bite fever and other potential infections. She died two days later.

A Zambian paramedic who accompanied her into the country died last week.

Pelser said the cleaner had been off work when she fell sick and the hospital called her home to enquire about her health.



"She fell ill off duty. She had been having problems with her health for months."

Although the woman had the same symptoms as three others who died, this could not be confirmed because of her health history.

The hospital would follow strict protocol and infection-control measures, including isolation, if any other patient presented the same flu-like symptoms.

The Health Department said it would conduct tests and post-mortems to establish the cause of these deaths.

Those who visited Zambia in the last month and were experiencing flu-like symptoms or raised temperatures were urged to immediately go to their nearest hospital for examination. -- Sapa

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:
Mystery illness not airborne, says hospital
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Oct 06 2008 13:55



The flu-like illness that has killed four people in Johannesburg is not airborne but is contracted through bodily fluids, said a spokesperson at the Morningside Medi-Clinic on Monday.

Just a guess but if a sick person coughs or sneezes, I'd say a few bodily fluids go "airborne" albeit only for a few meters

Yeah, they're just guessing. They haven't identified an agent, or even if there is one, so they certainly haven't figured out the mode of transmission.

Sounds like the Ebola virus doesn't it?

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
Sounds like the Ebola virus doesn't it?

From what they say, it's a cocktail of infections INCLUDING Ebola.....

A hundred and twenty people are now under observation after coming into contact with the three people who died from suspected haemorrhagic fever.

Earlier on Tuesday it was feared that a 51-year-old cleaning supervisor had also contracted the killer disease.

However doctors said the woman would probably be discharged on Tuesday after blood tests showed no trace of the virus.

One hundred and twenty one people who had direct contact with the three people who died are currently under observation and having their temperatures monitored every six hours for the next 21 days -- the possible incubation period of the disease.

A health official said on Tuesday the disease was suspected to be Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF).

"We suspect that it may be Congo haemorrhagic fever but we have not made a diagnosis yet," said Frew Benson, the South African Health Department's deputy director of communicable diseases.

Officials held a press conference at the Morningside Medi-Clinic on Tuesday, because they said they wanted to dispel misconception and panic around the illness.

Intensive care specialist professor Guy Richards said: "The public at large are not at risk".

The doctors said only those who had come into contact with the deceased and their bodily fluids had any possibility of contracting the disease.

I can't understand that flu-like disease is evoked and ends as an hemorrhagic fever. The diagnosis of an hemorrhagic fever is fairly easy, the patient bleeds to death and it's quite a show. My opinion is that the authorities wouldn't want to air the diagnostic that they knew in the first place.
Now it's up to the CDC in Atlanta to tell which virus is raging.
A flu-like disease is airborne, an hemorrhagic fever is acquired by contact with ill people.
Is sweat a bodily fluid?
Stay clear from this area!

Marbergs heamoratic fever was first identified in Southern Rhodesia by Mike Creese in the mid 1960's. Nobody really knew- or cared backthen. When ebola virus was found in Zim in the early 1990's the case was hushed up.

There have been persistent outbreaks of Marbergs/ebola/congo fever in the Zambezi valley and northwards for years, and nobody is sure how or what the carriers are. Mike was working on this when he died (of cancer) and his notes are gathering dust as he was never replaced in government service.

Having managed to cach 4 very different strains of tick fever/lyme disease over the last decade including one that was supposed to have died out in the 1930's...I am not suprised that odd cases of strange disease crop up time to time. If you are not sleeping with the locals or tending to the sick you are at virtually no risk. I'd be more concerned about the resergence of sleeping sickness and elephantisis (and I am not going to loose any sleep or hunting days over those concerns! )

It’s not ebola!
By Times Reporter
October 8, 2008 From The Times of Zambia

THE woman from Zambia who died in South Africa from a mysterious disease was in fact afflicted by cerebral edema and multi-organ failure, putting to rest suspicions that she was hit by the deadly ebola, experts have confirmed.

Five experts who carried out the investigations on two of the four deceased people revealed that the woman could have died from suspected viral infection from a tick bite that she incurred in Lusaka.

Experts from Specialty Emergency Services (SES) Corpmed Medical Centre (CMC) and Wilderness Safari said that the first victim of the disease, that had so far claimed four lives, owned horses and attended polo matches in Lusaka.

The woman is known to have walked barefoot most of the time and travelled within Africa frequently without seeking medical attention.

Between September 6-8 this year, she attended a wedding in South Africa where she might have had food poisoning along with six others all of whom had developed diarrheoa, vomiting and headache.

On September 10, she developed rash, fever and chest congestion and was attended to by a doctor at Care for Business Clinic, who told her that she had flu and sent her home.

The victim was flown to South Africa on September 12 after her condition deteriorated as she had seizures and died on September 14.

Most of the people she came in contact with, including her family, two doctors and employees at CMC had not shown any symptoms of the disease.

But a paramedic who had spent time with her during her seizure also died from multi-organ failure on October 1, almost two weeks after the meeting. He died at Morningside Hospital after being flown there.
The third victim was a nurse based at the clinic who had attended to the first patient.

The fourth one, a cleaner at the same health institution, died in the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.

Health Permanent Secretary, Simon Miti said in an interview yesterday that the health authorities in the country had been put on high alert against any symptoms similar to those that afflicted the four dead people.

Dr Miti said no such cases had been reported from the health institutions anywhere in the country and health officers were watching the situation.

He said apart from putting health institutions on high alert, authorities had also deployed officers at ports of entry to monitor the situation for symptoms of the disease.

He said that all the tests conducted in South Africa on the deceased people were negative to the initial suspicions and that the disease remained a mystery.

“We still have no trace of the disease in Zambia and, therefore, the nation should be calm,†he said.

Yesterday, the South African media reported that a 51-year-old woman was on Monday admitted to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg with symptoms of the unknown disease.

The Independent Online (IOL) reported that the hospital authorities could, however, not say whether the woman was related to the four earlier victims.

My primary concern would be if the RSA/Other nations have the political will/means to maintain a quarantine... I somehow doubt that, even if Johannesburg was to suddenly be in the grips of a pandemic, the RSA/Other nations would be willing to maintain an effective quarantine...

I insist on being extremely careful.
The filovirus Ebola, Lassa, Marburg are mutating very fast. They can contaminate people by contact with bodily fluids, possibly sweat.

One strain of this virus hit Reston, Virginia in 1976. The mutation enables it to perform airborne contamination.
Medics dealing with patients (or suspected ones) use an armor plugged onto an oxygen supply.

Only the CDC Atlanta will tell us which type of virus is striking. Flu-like symptoms and multi organs collapse undoubtedly evokes an hemorrhagic fever. I wonder why they don't dare to evoke the hemorrhagic symptoms?

Mystery virus identified
12/10/2008 16:39 - (SA)


Johannesburg - The mystery viral haemorrhagic fever which killed three people in South Africa has been provisionally identified as an arenavirus, the National Institute for Communicable diseases and the Department of Health said on Sunday.

"The causative agent of the disease... may be a rodent borne arenavirus related to the lassa fever virus of West Africa," said NICD's Dr Lucille Blumberg.

She said tests done by the NICD and the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta US indicated that the disease seemed to be a kind of an arenavirus.

Arenaviruses cause chronic infections in multimammatic mice - a kind of wild mouse - who excrete the virus in their urine which can then contaminate human food or house dust.

More tests needed

Viruses similar to the lassa fever virus has been found in rodents in Africa, but other than in West Africa have not been found to cause diseases in humans.

Therefore further tests still need to be done to find out whether this current strain is an undiscovered member of the arenavirus and what its distribution is.

Blumberg said a female nurse and a male paramedic were currently in isolation after they were in contact with those who previously died from the illness and had to be done showing symptoms of it.

'Highly suspect' patient

The paramedic has been since diagnosed with kidney stones and Blumberg said it was "less likely" he had the virus.

The nurse is "highly suspect" and is receiving anti-viral medication.

She was presently stable, but Blumberg could not say further how her condition was likely to progress.

- SAPA

This sounds like something out of a horror movie! Most of these unidentified viruses seem to lay dormant for years then strike with a vengeance and then seem to dissappear into thin air again, before they even find what animal carrier/vector is. It seems a lot of the time they seem so virulent, that they end up burning out into nothing....until the next outbreak! Quite scary stuff!