Jay, I'm so envious. I want to go travelling in China's outback too - it would be more convenient if I speak the lingo. I don't really have any idea on the human climate in China. I like to see things and people up close and personal. TV, cyberspace and words don't ever give me quite the right impression. They are filtered through somebody else's wacko perceptions and editing process.
Happy travels.
I am very interested in the girl and her father who died of flu in the past week or two and her brother who is in isolation and gravely ill. I wonder whether that won't be the big news story of 2003. All other events might become inconsequential. thestandard.com.hk
<A nine-year-old boy whose father and younger sister both died after falling ill on the mainland was confirmed yesterday to be suffering from potentially fatal bird flu.
The Department of Health said the boy, who went with his family to Fujian province over the Lunar New Year holiday, was recovering from a strain of the H5N1 virus that killed six people in Hong Kong in 1997. Three other family members - his mother, elder sister and grandfather - are also recovering from respiratory illnesses.
A department source said live chickens reared by relatives in Fujian were the most likely source of the boy's infection.
Test results are still awaited on the two dead family members - the girl, 8, died in Fujian on February 4, while the 33-year-old father died in Hong Kong on Monday - as well as the 10-year-old elder sister and 64-year-old grandfather.
The boy's infection is the first confirmed case of H5N1 since the fatal 1997 outbreak, but the department said it was a different strain. He was in stable condition yesterday.
The deaths and infections follow widespread panic in Guangdong this month after five people died from pneumonia.
The family, identified only by the surname Ko, went from their Tsing Yi home to Pingtan county in Fujian on January 26.
The eight-year-old daughter fell ill on January 28, was admitted to hospital with pneumonia on February 3 and died the next day.
The father, who joined the family in Fujian on January 31, developed pneumonia on February 7, the department said. Returning to Hong Kong for treatment, he was admitted to Princess Margaret Hospital on February 11 but died six days later.
The nine-year-old boy returned to Hong Kong on February 9 suffering from fever, a cough and running nose and entered Princess Margaret Hospital two days later. ...continued...>
Life is always full of surprises. Surprises are usually bad.
Gwynne Dyer got me worried. How about ebola? He thinks the Black Death was NOT due to bubonic plague but was in fact a haemorraghic viral infection nzherald.co.nz
If the world's population is halved, even QUALCOMM would suffer from the impact, though perhaps those amazing cdma2000 phragmented photons would ameliorate the worst effects of infection.
Boeing 747s would act as effective infection vectors - carrying infections worldwide inside a day. What fun! They'd be banned. Crowds would be unpopular. Cyberphone communication would be all the rage. Go QCOM!!!
Mqurice |
