Word: viruses
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...months since SARS first emerged in China in the southern province of Guangdong, the virus has sickened an infinitesimal percentage of the population. But nearly everyone, it seems, is afflicted with fear. What began as a mysterious, remote illness has become a national crisis of confidence that is threatening to cripple the Chinese economy and shake the ruling Communist Party to its foundations. The central government attempted last week to blunt mounting outrage over reports--first detailed in TIME and TIME's Asian edition--that health authorities had systematically underreported the number of SARS cases in China and willfully deceived...
...contain the epidemic, Beijing officials ordered the quarantine of all offices, hotels, restaurants and residential buildings that may have been visited by infected individuals. At Peking University's People's Hospital, the quarantine orders left some 2,000 healthworkers and patients isolated and at the mercy of the rampaging virus. At least 70 doctors and nurses and 20 patients at the hospital were already carrying the disease. In an effort to prevent the disease from spreading, Beijing has begun touting a soon-to-be-finished facility dedicated to SARS victims; wards are being constructed out of the same makeshift material...
...government fails to contain the epidemic and China's economy stumbles. There's little cause for optimism on either count. Citigroup economists have lowered the projected growth rate of China's economy this year from 7.6% to 6.5% as a result of the SARS scare. Meanwhile, the virus is picking up steam in the impoverished hinterlands, where public awareness of the risks of SARS is limited and hospitals lack the resources to treat an outbreak. In Shanxi province, just southwest of Beijing, eight patients have died, and overcrowded hospitals are turning patients away. Locals have begun to express openly their...
Meanwhile, top virologists in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Germany and several other nations have linked up to create a sort of virtual research lab. Their goal: to understand the virus itself. They identified the SARS virus several weeks ago, and now they are trying to come up with diagnostic tests. That's crucial. Early SARS cases present the same fevers, muscle aches and diarrhea as flu victims, and without a way to distinguish between them, the public-health system could be quickly overwhelmed...
...mistakes in the replication process. Most of these don't amount to anything, but every once in a while an error may make the microbe more infectious. Beyond that, says Dr. Robert Webster, chief of virology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., "when a virus comes across to a new host, what does a virus do? It varies like crazy...