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Australians travelling to the Middle East could need a health check when they return if infections caused by a SARS-like virus continue to rise, a WA disease expert warns.

Curtin University professor of health science Charles Watson said a new viral agent from the same family of viruses that caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome 10 years ago had emerged in the Middle East a few months ago and recently spread to Europe.

By this week, 41 cases of the coronavirus, known as London1 novel CoV 2012, had been reported and half the patients had died.

Professor Watson, a public health physician and neuroscientist, said the virus was not highly infectious and had been limited to small clusters but if the number of cases kept rising it could pose a risk to other countries such as Australia.

Of particular concern would be the impact of the hajj, a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in mid-October which was expected to attract two million Muslims from around the world, including Australia.

Professor Watson said it might be necessary to set up a special system to track pilgrims returning from the hajj.

"While overall you would have to say the risk in countries like Australia is not great at this stage, it really depends if it keeps smouldering on," he said.

"If the epidemic was still going on at the time of the hajj, which is a huge gathering, then it would have implications for a whole lot of countries because you'd have a lot of people returning home who might get ill and pass it on.

"We'd probably have to recommend that everyone coming back from the Middle East have a medical check when they arrived back. I think that would be sensible."

Professor Watson said the potential for viruses to spread had increased with the higher speed of international travel, which allowed people to travel anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. There were also continuing concerns about the new bird flu virus H7N9, which had spread to more than 100 people in China in recent weeks.

Originally posted here:
Killer virus alert for travellers

by Richard Ingham, Agence France-Presse Posted on 05/19/2013 12:11 PM |Updated 05/19/2013 12:34 PM

PARIS, France - Big names in medicine are set to give an upbeat assessment of the war on AIDS on Tuesday, May 21, 30 years after French researchers identified the virus that causes the disease.

Scientists will pay tribute to the astonishing success of AIDS drugs and highlight steps being taken towards a cure -- a goal once deemed all but out of reach.

Entitled "Imagine the Future," the three-day conference builds on the 30th anniversary on Monday of the isolation of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The Nobel-winning achievement, by a team led by Luc Montagnier of France's Pasteur Institute, unmasked a killer.

Then began the drive to treat the disease and halt its spread.

"The discovery of HIV in 1983 and the proof that it was the cause of AIDS in 1984 were the first major scientific breakthroughs that provided a specific target for blood-screening tests and opened the doorway to the development of antiretroviral medications," said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Introduced in 1996, after many years of frantic drug research, antiretrovirals are saving the lives of millions of people infected with HIV and helping to contain the virus' spread, Fauci said in an email.

By suppressing viral levels, antiretrovirals can prevent HIV being transmitted by pregnant women to their unborn children, and by infected people to their sexual partners.

But there have also been setbacks, particularly in the quest for a vaccine.

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AIDS science at 30: 'Cure' now part of lexicon

By: Philippine News Agency |Yonhap May 18, 2013 7:12 AM

InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea - An elderly man suspected of being bitten by a killer tick died on this southern island on Thursday, the first such case in the country following recent reports of deaths in Japan, local health authorities said.

The 73-year-old farmer, identified only by his surname Kang, died earlier in the day of blood poisoning after showing symptoms similar to those of SFTS, or severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Kang had been in the intensive care unit since last week after suffering from high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and consciousness degradation.

Though the authorities have yet to confirm his infection with the virus, their epidemiological investigation found that he got a tick bite, according to officials.

The syndrome, recently reported in China and Japan and known to be linked to a tick-born Bunyavirus, has a fatality rate of as high as 30 percent. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, multiple organ failure and other blood-related problems.

If confirmed, Kang will be the first case of human infection with the virus in South Korea. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said the virus was found in one species of tick, the Haemaphysalis longicornis, that inhabit the entire country.

In Japan, eight patients were found to be infected with the virus, and five of them have died.

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South Korea reports first suspected death by killer tick

Public release date: 16-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Luise Dirscherl dirscherl@lmu.de 49-892-180-2706 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt Mnchen

Infections can trigger hematopoiesis at sites outside the bone marrow in the liver, the spleen or the skin.Researchers of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich now show that a specific type of immune cell facilitates such "extra medullary" formation of blood cells.

Balanced hematopoiesis is essential for the function of the immune system. During fetal development, hematopoiesis takes place mainly in the liver and the spleen. Later the process is delegated to the bone marrow, and this tissue normally serves as the sole source of blood cells for the rest of one's lifetime. However, certain infections can reactivate hematopoiesis at sites other than the bone marrow, a process which is referred to as "extramedullary" hematopoiesis. One of the best known inducers is the so-called cytomegalovirus (CMV), a member of the herpesvirus family, which is widespread in human populations worldwide, and can lead to serious illness in individuals with immature or otherwise compromised immune systems.

An international team led by Professor Ulrich Koszinowski at LMU's Max von Pettenkofer-Institute has now examined how this virus activates hematopoiesis in tissues other than the bone marrow. "Herpesviruses are highly species-specific," explains Dr. Stefan Jordan, the lead author on the new paper. "So, in order to study the phenomenon of extramedullary hematopoiesis in an animal model, we were forced to turn to the mouse virus." The murine CMV induces extramedullary hematopoiesis principally in the spleen.

Killing of infected cells paves the way

The new findings reveal a hitherto unsuspected link between natural killer (NK) cells and hematopoiesis. NK cells play an important role in combating CMV infections, because they are the immune system's first line of defense against the virus. In the first place, they are able to recognize and eliminate CMV-infected cells and, secondly, they synthesize and secrete signal molecules that mobilize other types of immune cells to mount a concerted attack on the pathogen.

"The decisive factor that leads to hematopoiesis at otherwise dormant sites is the ability of NK cells to find and destroy virus-infected cells," says Jordan. Extramedullary hematopoiesis is actually initiated by the inflammatory reaction that occurs as an early response to infection with CMV. But when the virus can replicate and spread to other cells, the pathogen suppresses the process. "The development of extramedullary hematopoiesis in the spleen is dependent on the capacity of NK cells to prevent virus spread by effectively eliminating infected cells," Jordan explains.

Extramedullary hematopoiesis itself thus appears to be an antiviral reaction. This in turn has obvious implications for the development of novel therapies. Thus, targeted stimulation of the mechanism that triggers the process could help to fight and resolve viral infections. Conversely, there are situations in which the immune system overshoots, and the spleen becomes so enlarged that it has to be surgically removed. "In this context, it would be particularly useful to understand how CMV suppresses extramedullary hematopoiesis then one might be able to exploit the mechanism to prevent rupture of the splenic capsule and life-threatening internal bleedings," Jordan concludes.

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Herpes infections: Natural killer cells activate hematopoiesis

(05-16 10:48)

Only daughter recalls pain of losing mother and then watching over father dying of killer bird flu virus

The virus has already killed her mother, and Kelly Gu's father lies critically ill with H7N9 bird flu in a Shanghai hospital bed the only couple both infected in China. As her mother lay dying Gu was urgently summoned back to Shanghai from her doctoral studies in chemistry in France, but she was too late, missing the chance to say goodbye by a day, AFPs Bill Savadove writes. In her first interview with Western media, she said she knew her mother was dead when her father, already showing symptoms of fatigue and fever, told her by phone: It's just like winning a lottery, it's a lottery of very bad luck.'' The Gu family's experience portrays a government-run health system battling a new disease, while sometimes showing a lack of empathy for victims and their kin. The H7N9 strain of bird flu has sickened 130 people in mainland China and killed 35 of them, according to the latest available national figures. The government and World Health Organization have said there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, but Gu's parents could be a rare family cluster. Experts of the US government's Centers for Disease Control public health agency say such clusters could represent limited spread between people caused by prolonged, unprotected exposure. If the virus were to mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans it could trigger a pandemic. Gu, 26, said her father, who works in a property management office, was sad about his only child living overseas a fact that may have saved her life. Her mother, a 52-year old housewife she described as an optimist with a knack for technology, was probably infected on her daily trip to market near their home in western Shanghai. She had already been ill for five days by the time the central government revealed the H7N9 outbreak, going twice to a district-level hospital. The next day, having trouble breathing and suffering from fever, she went to one of Shanghai's finest hospitals, Huashan. But the emergency room doctor sent her home, ordering three days rest. She was dead in two. Beijing has been praised by the WHO for openness over H7N9, in contrast to its cover-up a decade ago of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which originated in China and killed 800 people globally. But critics question why it took the government three weeks to make an announcement after the first deaths, despite Internet postings describing a mysterious illness at a Shanghai hospital. And the case of Gu's parents she declined to give their full names reflects how the government-run health system struggled in the early stages. [The doctor] hadn't seen the scanning result of my mother's lung and he hadn't asked her to take another one. He just judged it was a normal fever and sent her back home,'' Gu said. Her mother died on April 3 of acute respiratory distress, and was confirmed to have the H7N9 virus a day later, one of Shanghai's earliest cases. Her father had started showing symptoms on April 1. There are only two other such family clusters, a father and two sons in Shanghai and another father and son in Shandong province. Gu's father has defied doctors' expectations by clinging to life, but is under sedation on a respirator and does not respond when she tries to talk with him on a video link. She makes a daily trek to see him at an isolation hospital in southwest Shanghai, where green lawns give it the atmosphere of a country club, and consult with doctors who say there is little they can do. In desperation, she sneaked into a news conference with a visiting WHO team last month to ask about possible treatment for her father, but Shanghai officials cut her off before she could complete her question. Even though the doctor said the possibility was zero, I never gave up,'' she said. ``If he can recover, I'll stay with him. I'll take the place of my mother and take care of him. But her father had seen the rapid deterioration in his wife's health, and the symptoms described by a public health poster in Huashan hospital. As he fell ill he recognized the symptoms in himself. When my mother passed away, my father just held her hand and said, 'Wait for me. I'll be there to accompany you,''' Gu said.

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Only daughter recalls pain of losing mother and fighting for father dying of killer bird flu