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Posted
On 1/6/2025 at 1:45 AM, thesetat said:

The World Health Organization, WHO, has declared the outbreak of a new coronavirus in China, a global health emergency.

Blah blah blah.... does anyone believe anything Dr WHO says now?

 

What happened to Mpox, tomato flu (summer of '23 I think) and more recently Disease X?

 

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

 

Now - that said - I would not trust one utterance of one syllable coming out of communist China.

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Posted
5 hours ago, NoDisplayName said:

Yepper, I get my breaking international health news from Nigeria.

I guess they can afford the huge research staff, being supported my all those Nigerian princes and all.

Cheaper for Russia/China/etc to pay goons in Nigeria to write nonsense on the internet to fool the intellectually challenged.

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Posted

More alarmist nonsense

Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV)

 

Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is a virus that usually causes symptoms similar to a cold. You might cough or wheeze, have a runny nose or a sore throat. Most cases are mild, but young children, adults over 65 and people with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk for serious illness. HMPV is common — most people get it before they turn 5.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22443-human-metapneumovirus-hmpv

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  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
On 1/7/2025 at 4:58 PM, candide said:

HMPV is not like Covid-19, in that it has been around for several decades and there is a level of immunity in the global population from past infections, the experts said. Covid-19 was a new disease which had never infected humans before, driving the pandemic-level spread.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/06/what-is-human-metapneumovirus-cases-surging-in-china-hmpv

 

 

One of the impacts of the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic is the increased surveillance capacity in most countries. When we look more carefully, we see more things. This is a good thing, People are properly diagnosed, and better treatments delivered.

 

Every pandemic leaves its mark on medicine.

 

if we count from 1918 flu; the impact from that was the idea of PPE and distancing.

The 1920s saw the start of a 40 year polio pandemic. The iron lung came about because of that, but disappeared because of the success of thr polio vaccine. But the lasting legacy of polio was Intensive Care Medicine, invented in Denmark as a response. And now we can't think of medicine without it

Another benefit of polio; the FDA. Prior to Salk's  polio vaccine, there was no FDA. There were no clinical trials. Salk developed a polio vaccine, which reduced Eisenhower to tears. His approach was to use inactivated polio vaccine. Key was using formaldehyde to kill the virus. Contracts to make millions of batches went to 3 companies. One of these companies didn't know how to make formaldehyde, with the result 200,000 kids were infected. The FDA was formed as a  result, to provide regulatory oversight to the companies making medicines.

End of the 50; China or Mao flu; 20 years earlier, Australia developed the first flu vaccine (remarkable, as the flu virus was only discovered in the 1930s). The vaccine had only limited utlity unless you knew the serotype of the virus in circulation. In 1957, a lab in Singapore, with Walter Reed in US, for the first time identified the serotype of a circulating flu virus, allowing vaccine to be manufactured in  response. This stopped the 1968 Hong Kong flue from becoming a pandemic, thanks to production of an The work really initiated the whole area of molecular diagnostics, and transformed the role of the path lab.

 

We know from improved diagnostics that the measles vaccine is not as effective as previously though. It does not prevent infections. In a population of vaccinated kids, PCR will show the virus  circulating. But the burden is reduced such that the kids won't develop measles.

 

Time tell what the lasting legacy is from COVID. Initially I thought it might be increased diagnostics capacity; before covid, not all countries could carry out PCR at large scale.. During COVID, there were massive investments into labs, which in theory should have left a skilled workforce, setting the scene for better cancer diagnostics. But that capacity was quickly stood down.

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