H5N1 Sichuan Situation Update - Captain Trips?

An AP cover story on this situation emerged yesterday, and seems quite out of line with what we are hearing.

This outbreak appears to be more extensive than originally reported, with another 58 people under observation with similar symptoms.

An initial 20 farm workers who handled sick or dead pigs and sheep in 12 towns and 15 villages in Jianyang city and Ziyang city's Yanjiang district suffered from high fever, nausea, vomiting and hemorrhaging.

Patients were from 49 villages of 23 townships in Sichuan and they were not related to each other.

The farmers suffered flu-like symptoms in the early stages of the disease, including fever, fatigue, nausea and vomiting. Later, the farmers suffered bleeding under the skin, shock and other symptoms.

The AP story states: symptoms that include high fever, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and "became comatose later with bruises under the skin," from the official Xinhua News Agency.

Funny how the shock and hemorrhagic symptoms are changed to "comatose later with bruises". Bleeding under the skin means its a hemorrhagic fever. Many exist and are symptomatic of EBOLA virus amongst other things.

More cover up from AP: Zeng Huajin, a senior official with the provincial health department, said the deadly illness was "probably" caused by Streptococcus suis, a bacterium usually spread among pigs.

"I can assure you that the disease is absolutely not SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), anthrax or avian influenza,"

He did not elaborate on how the illness spread to humans, saying more research needed to be done. Bob Dietz, a spokesman for the WHO said the symptoms reported "seem consistent" with streptococcus suis.

Mr. Dietz and Mr. Huajin's statements are a bit odd and out of line with the evidence, considering that the most COMMON MANIFESTATION of human Strep. suis infection is MENINGITIS, and Strep. Suis is generally sporadic in man.

The AP story ran with their statements but did not follow up. We would ask how symptoms reported "seem consistent" with Strep. suis when overt MENINGITIS is NOT described in the CURRENT cases?

A second question would be, if Strep. Suis in generally SPORADIC in man, then why is this manifestation spreading so EASILY, so FAST, and so FAR in distance?

As such, it appears that Strep. suis is LESS LIKELY to be the etiology of this outbreak in China.

The only thing in the AP story we agree with is Mr. Huagin's statement, "this is absolutely not SARS, anthrax or avian influenza".

As stated in earlier posts, we look to a BIO WEAPONS laboratory produced hybrid of H5N1 with a hemmorhagic component such as Ebola as the etiology of these outbreaks in China.

AP Cover Story

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