novascotia35 wrote:
I agree this is alarming. How much of the variance do you think is due to sample bias (only sending tests for serious cases to the lab in the first place)?
I'm impressed they confirmed all of those NON-FATAL cases, myself.
I'm NOT alone either, the following article is all about just how DIFFICULT it was to even CONFIRM this virus (in intensive care) over the last year
(Honestly, in our hospital, we rarely detected it unless a patient was intubated, and a deep lung sample was obtained and UNTIL PCR testing was done.) My collegues in Atlanta based Hospitals shared the same frustrations when I spoke with them. It's hard to confirm this bug. In retrospect, this difficulty in diagnosis was NOT uncommon.
http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/5/824.htmSo... for this virus to
all of a sudden become "detectable" without intubation (being put on a ventilator), and for it to have a 21% fatality rate... is HIGHLY alarming to me, as a Respiratory Care Professional. It screams of a virus that is NOW reproducing in the nose (and therefore easily detected via rapid flu test) as well as a virus that has a 21% fatality rate. That's scary. MOST people who catch Swine H1N1 never need to be placed on a ventilator, so we pretty much did not diagnose MOST people with Pandemic H1N1 in the U.S. And even if they aren't all confirmed cases... that's an awful lot of influenza like illness that ends in death.
So, to me, These numbers coming out of India ARE alarming. No matter how I look at it, the numbers are significant.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
