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HANOI, Vietnam A deadly form of a common childhood illness has been linked to many of the mysterious child deaths in Cambodia that caused alarm after a cause could not immediately be determined, health officials said Monday.

Lab tests have confirmed that a virulent strain of hand, foot and mouth disease known as EV-71 is to blame for many of the 59 cases reviewed, including 52 deaths, according to a joint statement from the World Health Organization and Cambodian Health Ministry. The numbers were lowered from the initial report of 62 cases.

EV-71 is a virus that can result in paralysis, brain swelling and death. Most of the Cambodian cases involved children under 3 who experienced fever, respiratory problems that quickly progressed and sometimes neurological symptoms.

Hand, foot and mouth disease has been raging across Asia, and usually causes a telltale rash. WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said rashes were seen in only a few of the Cambodian cases, and it's possible that steroids administered by doctors could have masked the symptom.

The lab results also identified other diseases in some cases, including mosquito-borne dengue fever and Streptococcus suis, a germ commonly seen in pigs that sometimes infects people, often causing meningitis and hearing loss, Bhatiasevi said.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is spread by sneezing, coughing and contact with fluid from blisters or infected feces. It is caused by a group of enteroviruses in the same family as polio. No vaccine or specific treatment exists, but illness is typically mild and most children recover quickly without problems.

The virus gets its name from the symptoms it causes, including rash, mouth sores and blisters covering the hands and feet. Many infected children are not sickened at all, but remain capable of spreading it to others.

Neighboring Vietnam has been battling a surging number of hand, foot and mouth disease cases for the past few years, with EV-71 also wreaking havoc there. Last year, the disease sickened more than 110,000 people in Vietnam and killed 166, mostly children whose immune systems were not strong enough to fend off the infection.

China is also experiencing an outbreak, and more than 240 people have died of the disease there this year, according to China's health ministry.

The Cambodia investigation is continuing, but the H5N1 bird flu virus, SARS and Nipah a deadly virus usually spread by fruit bats or pigs have all been ruled out.

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Deadly form of hand, foot and mouth disease linked to mysterious child killer in Cambodia

Virus link to Cambodias killer disease found (2 hrs 40 mins ago) Health experts working to identify an illness that has killed dozens of children in Cambodia found a link to a virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease, the UN health agency said. At least 52 children aged three months to 11 years have died from the undiagnosed syndrome since mid-April, out of 59 cases, the World Health Organization and the Cambodian health ministry said, updating the toll. Recent laboratory results showed "a significant proportion of the samples tested positive for Enterovirus 71 (EV-71)'', which causes a lethal strain of hand, foot and mouth disease, the joint statement said, Agence France-Presse reports. EV-71 is common in Asia, but Nima Asgari, a public health specialist for the WHO in Cambodia, told AFP he believed it had not been seen in this country before. Asgari said identification of the strain was an important first step but stressed more tests were needed to learn if the deceased children also suffered from other viruses. "It's a significant finding,'' he said. "It demystifies quite a lot the situation.''

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Virus link to Cambodias killer disease found

MANILA, Philippines It's not bird flu or SARS. It's Enterovirus 71.

This virus is behind the mystery illness that killed 64 young children and hospitalized 66 in Cambodia, scientists in Phnom Penh said on Sunday, July 8.

The Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh announced that it discovered Enterovirus Type 71 in about two-thirds of patients. The virus is the perfect explanation for the deaths, according to the institutes virology unit head Philippe Buchy who was cited by Bloomberg.

We can now focus on how to contain it, Buchy said.

Enterovirus Type 71 is a strain of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), which is widespread in Asia but rare in Cambodia.

HFMD, a human disease due to intestinal viruses, is not the same as foot-and-mouth disease, which only affects animals. Children affected by HFMD generally suffer high fever, rashes, respiratory and, sometimes, neurological problems.

It took longer for the experts to identify the virus since, in the 64 of the 66 deaths reported since April, the childs health deteriorated faster than expected.

The Enterovirus 71 usually does not lead to such quick deaths.

Most of the 64 who died are between the ages of two and three, according to Swiss pediatrician Beat Richner of Kantha Bopha children's hospital in Phonm Penh where most of the patients were taken.

"All these children have encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and in the later hours of their life they develop a severe pneumonia with a destruction of the alveoli in the lungs. That is the reason they die," he said. The alveoli, or air sacs, are pockets in the lungs where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place.

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Enterovirus 71 behind 'mystery disease'

Malware Monday tomorrow, to shut off infected computers

By ksl.com

July 8th, 2012 @ 4:54pm

SALT LAKE CITY Tomorrow has been marked as "Internet Doomsday" and "Malware Monday," as thousands of Americans could find themselves without Internet access.

At 12:01 on Monday, July 9, the FBI's temporary safety net, protecting computers from the DNS Changer Virus, will expire.

The virus redirects your Internet request to imposter websites, and gets personal information when you enter it into the false website. Last year, when the virus was discovered, the FBI became involved and created a temporary solution. They installed two clean servers that any DNS-infected computer gets Internet access through so that the malware will not spread to other computers.

The problem for infected computers? On Monday, the FBI will shut off those two servers, terminating Internet access.

To check if your computer is infected, visit http://www.dns-ok.us/"target=_blank>http://www.dns-ok.us. The site will give you a green icon, or a red icon. If it is red, your computer is infected.

If you are infected, you can fix the problem using a free TDS Killer kit on the antivirus software site KAPERSKY. Install the software, which will scan your computer for threats, as well as remove any traces of the virus on your system.

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Malware Monday tomorrow, to shut off infected computers

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2012) Both innate and adaptive immune responses play an important role in controlling influenza virus infection, according to a study, published in the Open Access journal PLoS Computational Biology, by researchers from Oakland University, Michigan, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA.

Influenza, as a contagious respiratory illness remains a major public health problem worldwide. Seasonal and pandemic influenza results in approximately 3 to 569 million cases of severe illness and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide. Although most infected subjects with intact immune systems are able to clear the virus without developing serious flu complications, the biological factors responsible for viral control remain unclear.

To investigate the factors for viral control, the researchers developed mathematical models that included both innate and adaptive immune responses to the virus. These models were used to study the viral dynamics of the influenza virus infection in horses. After infection, viral levels rise rapidly, reach a peak and fall, then they attain a low plateau that can be followed in some animals by a second peak. Ultimately, viral levels decline and the infection is cleared. By comparing modeling predictions with experimental data, researchers examined the relative roles of availability of cells susceptible to infection, so-called target cells, and innate and adaptive immune responses in controlling the virus.

The research showed that the two-part innate immune response, generated by natural killer cells, and the antiviral effect caused by interferon, a naturally produced protective molecule, can explain the first rapid viral decline and subsequent second viral peak. The second peak comes about because as the viral level falls, the immune response also falls allowing the virus the opportunity to grow back before the adaptive ultimately clears it.

However, for eventual viral clearance it is the body's adaptive immune response that is needed.

The data analyzed were from equine influenza virus infection in horses. However, similar viral kinetic profiles have been observed in humans infected with the influenza virus. The authors conclude that the study can be used to explain the viral and interferon kinetics observed during a typical influenza virus infection.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.

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Both innate and adaptive immune responses are critical to the control of influenza