Word: viruses
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...high number of SARS cases among health-care workers who had taken all the recommended precautions, including wearing gloves, masks and gowns and vigorously washing their hands. The problem there may have been fatigue and complacency in the changing room. CDC scientists reported last week that the virus can survive as long as 24 hours outside the body: doctors and nurses who touch their protective gear while changing into regular clothing may be unwittingly exposing themselves and others to the coronavirus...
...risk of death from SARS, meanwhile, may have less to do with a particular strain of the virus and more to do with the body's reaction to it. "The immunological and inflammatory response of the body," says Fauci, "could be contributing significantly to the damage in the lungs." But nailing that down, along with questions of whether survivors become immune to further infection and whether the disease is permanently with us, like AIDS, will take more research...
...will the search for a vaccine. The biotech company GenVec announced plans last week to collaborate with NIAID to insert portions of the coronavirus genome into a weakened cold virus. If the proteins generated by these snippets are powerful enough to trigger an effective immune response, then the resulting vaccine might be successful. NIAID is also coordinating separate U.S. government efforts to develop vaccine candidates. And the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease is screening thousands of compounds to see if any might slow or stop the disease...
...that may only put off the inevitable. While the U.S. is better equipped than most countries to detect and contain epidemics, it's pure luck that it has not been hit harder. So far, none of the handful of people who have carried the virus to the U.S. from Asia have been superspreaders. And health-care workers in the U.S. have not yet made any of the mistakes that tripped up the Canadians: a patient transferred from an affected hospital to an unaffected one, lax enforcement of isolation orders, hospital workers who may not have been vigilant enough with protective...
...virus is costing Canada $30 million a day, according to J.P. Morgan...