A 39 year old german came back on a Air France plane from Africa. Had high fever, etc... Came in possible contact with family members, airplane, passengers, etc... Now he is starting to bleed through his skin. Flew him immediatly to Berlin into special hospital. Authorities suspect Ebola or Lassa Fever.

This could get really interesting if it really is any one of those viruses. Only thing that bothers me is that the newspaper reporting it is not very reputable. Bild.

link is in German only but you can read the headline..Bild

Just found this... so haven't scanned the wire services for more info yet...

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), August 03, 1999

Answers

By the way.. Might not be the most reputable, but it's the most read newspaper in Germany. So, for them to lead with this... there got to be something to it.

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), August 03, 1999.

It's in GERMAN, for God's sake! Gotta English link or tranlation? :-)

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), August 03, 1999.

These terrible diseases, unfortunately, are a part of life. However, even a few cases is not what you would call an outbreak........

There seems to be a predispostion of many contributors to this forum, to post any kind of BAD news that can be found.......is it because they are addicted to bad news or somehow feel the need to try and prove that everything is falling apart......

Perhaps try posting a bit of good news occasionally.......it would give less ammunition for those who like to use the 'doomer' word........

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), August 03, 1999.

Craig.... I must have been off the board on the day you were proclaimed to be a Y2K expert. You seem to enjoy sniveling a lot, why not stay over with the debunkers where you fit in so nicely. You are giving Canadians a bad image with your whining. Be a man and do the right thing...disappear!

-- For (your@info.com), August 03, 1999.

Bild IS the german verion of the National Inquire.

An old saying in germany sais Bild spricht mit den toten ( Bild is talking with the death) so to speak....

don't believe a word they are saying :-) I allways enjoy the () pictures they have on the site :-).

Hmm looks like I'm just a dirty old man :-)

-- Rickjohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Hmmm... airborne monkey diseases from Africa... a sure sign that Y2K is going to wipe us all out.

Craig is right, there is a predisposition of bad news posters here, get over your egos and admit it. Just look up a few threads and see what some poor soul has to say about 8, count 'em , 8 choppers.

-- (boink@narf.skippy), August 03, 1999.

Actually Rickjohn, that's more accurately translated as:

"Bild talks to the dead".

Neat trick if you can pull it off more than once, I'd say.

:-)

Jolly

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), August 03, 1999.

I got a hot flash for you boink. You better pray that Ebola hasn't become an airborne virus. Classic Ebola is spread through secretions, and has a 90+ mortality. So far the outbreaks have been contained because the infections have killed faster then they have spread. Ebola Reston, a variant that killed a number of monkeys in Reston Virginia DID get spread as a respiratory variant and scared the piss out of the CDC and USAAMRID ( the army bio warfare folks).FORTUNATELY the virus did not infect humans or you are looking at something that could make the Black Plague look like the common cold.

-- kozak (kozak@formerusaf.guv), August 03, 1999.

kozak,

your only hammering home the point that these OT threads are aimed to instill fear into people and not really deal with Y2K in any way. Yeah, okay, maybe one day there will be something worse that the Black Plague... so what?

I got a REALLY hot flash for you, in about five billion years the sun will explode into a red giant and engulf our planet... that ought to make your monkey disease look like a stroll through the park. So you see, our fate is already sealed. Bad news is always going to be around. There isn't any use sitting around and spreading rumors about it on the interent and somehow making it seem like it's "all coming apart" in the Year 2000, because that's irrational.

-- (boink@nark.skippy), August 03, 1999.

I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else. I was trying to correct a factual error on your part. The original poster passed on some information he thought might interest people. He qualified it as unconfirmed and of a somewhat dubious source. Why don't you give us the benefit of the doubt as to how seriously we should take it?

-- kozak (kozak@formerusaf.guv), August 03, 1999.

So you *still* don't understand how intensely pertinent to Y2K this is? Some ppl remain clueless no matter how many times these simple facts are reiterated.

Diseases are tracked by computers. Hospitals are computerized; medical information is computerized. Labs, equipment, tests rely on electronics and electricity. When there is an outbreak, high-tech comes into play big-time, along with intranets and telecommunications and 24-hour collaboration among many alphabet agencies and countries.

Samples, cultures, tissues, vaccines, medicines are developed and tested and tracked using computerized & special electronic widgets. With this array of high-tech arsenal, these killer germs can be stopped. Take away the tools and speed of investigation and medicines, and you have the climate for mass epidemics.

Try working in a modern hospital if you don't understand this.

Now add the obvious publicly proclaimed concerns of the CIA, FBI, DOD, etc that TERRORISTS are planning to take advantage of Rollover Fubars and spread their nuke/bio/chem New Year's Evils.

Get the picture yet?
Any dress re.hearse.alls are watched by those of us trying to learn what best ways there may be to cope.

Live and learn, or fie, lie and die.

Time Will Tell, Prepare For Hell.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 03, 1999.

8/3/99 -- 6:16 PM

Twenty people infected with anthrax, more than 250 others

MOSCOW (AP) - Twenty people have been infected with anthrax in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, and more than 250 others have been exposed to the disease, a news agency reported Tuesday.

Earlier, Kyrgyz authorities had said that 700 workers were involved in butchering cattle that were sick with anthrax. But Health Ministry officials now say 270 people had contact with the infected meat, Interfax reported.

The government has imposed a state of emergency in southern regions of Kyrgyzstan, and regional authorities have been told to tighten control over the slaughter of animals and sale of meat, the news agency said.

The bacteria that causes anthrax is common among domesticated livestock and can be transferred to humans. It is widely feared as an agent in biological warfare, and can cause skin lesions, ulcers and respiratory difficulty, among other symptoms.

The fatality rate of anthrax varies widely according to how the bacteria is transmitted.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 03, 1999.

What if y2k mutates into an airborne virus?

-- Butt Nugget (nubuttet@better.mousetrap), August 03, 1999.

I don't know Mr. Butt Nuggett. Maybe I'll come to your house for the antidote...mmmm mmmm *Wink* *Wink*

-- _ (T@q.M.S.q), August 03, 1999.

Bingle, errr, Boink, I think Ashton and Leska have the salient point here. A modern hospital RUNS on its data cable. A modern investigation in medicine truly REQUIRES the ability to pass large quantities of digitized data, to MANY places. We may scan a bug here in Cleveland and the SCANS get sent to CDC for id, or may be spread over the whole world for id.

Meds are prescribed by computer, now.

Charts are computer-tracked, Medical orders are entered on-line. there are whole hospital staffs that have frogotten how to do anything with paper, now that they have their computers.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 03, 1999.

I just don't understand how relevant a bug in Germany is to the global infrastructure. Maybe I'm just not using my imagination enough to come up with this stuff. Or maybe that it's I prefer facts to scary stories.

-- (VRMVq @ .  ), August 03, 1999.

Diagnosis: Brain block, learning stymied, reading comprehension sub-remedial level.

-- Doc's assistant (sad case in@Orion.stunt), August 03, 1999.

You want to see something shut down outgoing air travel faster than you can say "Jackal"? Try even a little suspicion of Ebola or dengue fever!! The public health authorities of practically any country would have massive strokes if they thought that even ONE case of either was in their country and not contained. There have been at least two cases of a country being totally isolated within the last 10 years because of a suspected Ebola outbreak. Nigeria in 1992 and the southern portion of the Sudan in 1994. They did not receive much if any publicity but they did happen. Blocks only lasted 3 days. In Nigeria's case, they determined that it was not Ebola. In the case of the Sudan, they determined that the outbreak had been isolated without spread.

And the diagnosis was done by a computer controlled microscope and the answers and potential were gameplayed and were relayed by computer and the net. Yes, it could be a problem in y2k.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Thanks, Lobo, another medically-aware regular! In this day and age, with so much quick travel, we really need the electronic diagnostic tools. And communication, essential!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 03, 1999.

Craig,

I did not post this message to "spread bad news". I posted it as a sign on how fragile our whole ecology really is. Without modern technology (leska does a much better point then me) the proverbial shit can hit the fan quickly.

Personally I would LOVE to watch the superbowl next January with my Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning it all. But then again... That would mean the end of the world now wouldn't it..?????

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), August 04, 1999.

LOL, STFrancis!

Thanks for the heads up on Russian anthrax, A&L. I found it particularly interesting in view of a documentary I saw on CBC news last night about a Russian lab which has developed an anthrax which is unaffected by the vaccine. It was apparently developed in a lab which was partially (completely?) funded by the US and was supposed to be doing peace-time research only. According to the report, the alphabet agencies are all very concerned about the likelihood of:

a) other labs doing similar research

b) scientists selling that research to any bidders

c) scientists selling themselves to do similar research for any who will pay them.

The last two are a particular concern. The documentary stated that a single lab in Siberia which used to employ 4500 scientists and techs now employs about 1000 - and they have not been paid in several months.

The closing statement of the report was that the US has just agreed to fund the lab which discovered/developed the resistant anthrax for another $2,000,000 in hopes of keeping the better scientists employed and out of enemy hands. Their comment? too little, too late.

I have felt for some time that Russia is a good example of what we could be looking at here, if things go poorly (a 6-8).

-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), August 04, 1999.

Headlined now on Drudge:

FEARS OF EBOLA VIRUS OUTBREAK IN EUROPE

Germany is on Ebola fever alert late tonight after a man returned from a trip to Africa bleeding through his eyes and ears... MORE... The patient was in Africa doing research on frogs and rhesus monkeys for the University of Wuerzburg, said Greg Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva ... MORE ... The German patient was being held in strict quarantine in Berlin until officials could determine the cause of the symptoms ... MORE ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 04, 1999.

Not a medical expert at all, but an Ebola outbreak in Nigeria IS NOT the same as an Ebola outbreak in Germany...

Quarantine of a village in a remote jungle is one thing... try doing that in Berlin, Munich, Frankfort, with travelers passing through by the thousands 24 hours a day to destinations all over the world...

I hope to God it's contained... otherwise Y2K really is solved... remediated the population...

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), August 04, 1999.

Carl, you are so right. What I was referring to in my earlier post is that the world's reaction to a possible case of Ebola is extreme. One of the other posters had intimated that this was just another 'scare' tactic and had nothing to do wih y2k. Just trying to tell him it has happened before....just not seriously (except to the ones affected). No, I can't imagine Berlin or Stuttgart under epidemic controls and/or isolation.

I think I want my teddy (and a strong nightcap...Crown maybe?)

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), August 04, 1999.

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/297439.asp

EBOLA SCARE GRIPS GERMANY

Doctors fear mysterious virus transferred from Ivory Coast

REUTERSBERLIN, Aug 5  A second man was in quarantine in Germany on Thursday after a friend who had accompanied him to West Africa was rushed into hospital with a mystery illness that doctors fear could be the killer virus ebola. The second man, who health officials said had shown no sign of illness so far, returned from a two-week working trip to Ivory Coast on Sunday with a 40-year-old film-maker who was airlifted to Berlins isolation hospital on Tuesday.

THE RESULTS of blood tests on the sick man, named as Olaf Ullmann from the eastern border town of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, were expected later on Thursday. Medical staff were treating him wearing hermetically sealed suits and breathing apparatus.

He is suspected to be suffering viral haemorrhagic fever. Its symptoms can be caused by four potentially fatal tropical viruses: Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and Dengue, medical experts said.

Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses known and kills by causing high fever and severe bleeding. An outbreak in 1995 in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, killed 81 percent of its victims.

Although the mans illness is unknown, the erection of a two yard high fence around the ward patrolled by security guards has sparked frenzied media speculation about the risk he may have infected passengers on his return flights from Africa.

Will his fellow passengers spread the virus around Europe, could tens of thousands of people already be affected ...? asked Germanys mass-readership Bild newspaper.

Health authorities said any threat that the man might have infected others on his flights from the Ivory Coast via Zurich to Berlin was minimal as he had not reported any symptoms until during the actual journey.

PASSENGER LISTS

Swissair, the airline with which the two men and their partners returned from Africa, said it had made its passenger lists available to the German health authorities and were able to identify who had sat nearby.

But we have no decision on what the illness is and therefore what precautions to take as yet, Swissair spokesman Erwin Schaerer told Reuters. He said he had no knowledge of other passengers being contacted yet.

The cameramans wife and the girlfriend of the second man were not in quarantine but being carefully monitored along with the medical staff who attended the cameraman in his home town before being transferred by helicopter to Berlin.

He was pretty exhausted but we were all exhausted and we couldnt possibly imagine that something might be wrong with him, Ullmanns wife Kordula told Reuters.

Two help lines were set up to answer the publics questions.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 05, 1999.

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

http://www.yahoo.co.uk/headlines/19990805/drecord/p27s1_933894445.html

Friday August 6, 12:07 AM

Terror As Ebola Suspect No 2 Is Isolated

A WAVE of fear swept through Germany last night as a second Ebola suspect was put in quarantine. The 40-year-old man has not been named, but he had been on the same African trip as film-maker Olaf Ullmann, who is fighting for his life in a Berlin hospital.

Ullmann's condition has deteriorated rapidly since he was flown into the Virchow Clinic on Tuesday and doctors have warned privately that they don't expect him to survive.

He has been bleeding from his eyes, nose and ears, his kidneys and liver are not working properly and he is suffering from internal haemorrhaging.

These could be the symptoms of Ebola, but doctors won't know until they get the results of blood tests.

These are being carried out by tropical diseases experts and the findings will be known today.

The second man, a biologist, flew back from the Ivory Coast with Ullmann at the weekend.

He is in isolation at a clinic in Jena, but has so far shown none of the same symptoms.

The Ebola scare has caused panic throughout Germany.

Experts say the likelihood of an epidemic breaking out is extremely small, but that has done little to calm people's fears.

Many have been harking back to the Dustin Hoffman film, Outbreak, in which an entire town is targeted for destruction by the US military after an Ebola victim starts an epidemic.

Scenes at the Virchow Clinic reinforce that image.

Armed police have set up a barrier around the hospital and searchlights scour the grounds at night to keep intruders at bay.

Inside, Ullmann is cocooned in a pounds 140,000 plastic tent and no medic can touch him without wearing a suit designed to withstand a chemical warfare attack.

Doctors have been told they can't leave the clinic while the scare goes on.

Ebola causes death to around 80 per cent of those who catch it and scientists treat it like the plague.

One infectious diseases specialist said: "The idea of an Ebola outbreak in a big city is like hell on Earth."

The virus was first discovered in the Sudan in 1976 and since then almost 1100 Africans have contracted the virus - 793 of them died.

Ebola is passed on by direct contact with infected organs, blood or other bodily fluids.

The first symptoms are fever, muscle pain, headaches and sore throats, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash, kidney or liver damage and both internal and external bleeding.

There is no specific treatment or vaccine - suspected cases are put in isolation while medics can do little more than hope for the best.

Dr Hans-Herbert Schmitz, of a tropical diseases centre in Hamburg, said: "The chance is very slim of an epidemic, but I understand the public nervousness - Ebola is a terrible virus."

Ullmann was originally thought to be suffering from malaria after taking ill on Sunday at his home in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder.

Around 100 people who came into contact with him at a Frankfurt clinic have already been given blood tests.

But 188 fellow passengers who were on the Swissair plane which flew him home, via Zurich, are still being contacted.

But his wife, Cordula, 42, has been given the all-clear after being quarantined and tested. Yesterday, she pleaded with people to pray for her husband.

She said: "He is a good and gentle man and does not deserve to be in this agony. I hope to God he hasn't got Ebola."
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 05, 1999.

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/297439.asp

NOT EBOLA

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS BERLIN, Aug 5  Officials caring for a seriously ill German film maker who recently returned from the Ivory Coast have ruled out the four most deadly tropical viruses. The illness is not Ebola, Lassa, Marburg or Hunter fever, though it has hemorrhagic symptoms that prompted the scare.

THE HAMBURG INSTITUTE for Tropical Diseases, which tested Ulmanns blood had ruled these four notorious viruses, according to Norbert Suttrop, who heads care for the 40-year-old patient, Olaf Ulmann. But Suttrop said on German television Thursday night that doctors have not yet identified the cause of the illness.

Ulmann developed his symptoms just hours after returning home to the eastern border town of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder from the Ivory Coast and Liberia, where he was shooting a documentary on African animals for a German television childrens program.

On Sunday, he and his wife returned to Frankfurt on Swissair flight 253 via Zurich, which had 180 passengers on board. When he arrived at his home he developed a fever, German media reported, and five hours later he decided to see a doctor at a hospital.

Ulmann was treated at the Department for Internal Medicine at the Frankfurt hospital, but his fever rose steadily. On Tuesday afternoon, he started bleeding through the skin and was immediately transferred to a quarantine unit in Berlins Charite Hospital.

The symptoms, especially this type of bleeding, resembled those of the Ebola virus and several other rare tropical diseases, including Marburg, Lassa, and Hunter fevers. An Ebola outbreak in 1995 in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, killed 81 percent of its victims. The Institute of Tropical Diseases has now ruled out all of these viral fevers in Ulmanns case, NBC learned on Thursday night.

Doctors have not positively identified Ulmans illness, and doctors at the Hamburg Institute of Tropical Disease say it may still be Kongo, Rift-Valley or Yellow fever. Ulmann remains in quarantine while doctors figure out which virus he has. An answer is expected Friday or Saturday.

Ulmanns condition was deteriorating rapidly on Thursday. He has serious kidney and liver damages, hospital spokesperson Kirsten Ullrich said. Hes being artificially fed. He is being treated with medication which supports the malfunctioning organs and at times he is confused and does not know where he is or which people are surrounding him.

The erection of a two yard high fence around Ulmans ward patrolled by security guards sparked frenzied media speculation about the risk he may have infected passengers on his return flights from Africa. Will his fellow passengers spread the virus around Europe, could tens of thousands of people already be affected ...? asked Germanys mass-readership Bild newspaper. On Tuesday, Bilds headline read: Ebola Alarm.

PASSENGER LISTS

But health authorities said any threat that the man might have infected others on his flights from the Ivory Coast via Zurich to Berlin was minimal, because he did not report any symptoms until well after the actual journey.

Swissair said it had made its passenger lists available to the German health authorities and were able to identify who had sat nearby. But we have no decision on what the illness is and therefore what precautions to take as yet, Swissair spokesman Erwin Schaerer said. He said he had no knowledge of other passengers being contacted yet.

A second man who had been working with Ulmann on the film with Ulmann was in quarantine Thursday. Ulmans wife and the girlfriend of the second man, who worked as Ulmanns soundman, were not in quarantine but being carefully monitored along with the medical staff who attended the cameraman in his home town before being transferred by helicopter to Berlin.

He was pretty exhausted but we were all exhausted and we couldnt possibly imagine that something might be wrong with him, Ulmanns wife Kordula told Reuters.

Two help lines were set up to answer the publics questions.

NBCs Andy Eckardt in Mainz and Reuters contributed to this report.

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And the intense research to figure out what he does have involves innumerable computerized tests and databases!

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 05, 1999.

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

Friday August 6 10:22 AM ET

German 'Ebola Victim' Dies Of Yellow Fever

By Deborah Cole

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German who sparked alarm in Berlin when he fell ill with a tropical disease that doctors at first feared might be the deadly Ebola virus died Friday of yellow fever, five days after returning from West Africa.

It appeared he might have been the victim of an unlucky chance that prior immunization against the disease had failed to work.

The doctor who treated 40-year-old Olaf Ullmann said yellow fever and Ebola had similar symptoms -- heavy bleeding and high fever -- which had delayed diagnosis until Friday. But, as with other viruses, there was nothing else doctors could have done.

``Even had we known from the beginning he was suffering from yellow fever it would not have changed the treatment,'' Norbert Suttorp of Berlin's Charite hospital told a news conference called to allay fears about an outbreak of killer disease.

An expert in tropical diseases said Ullmann, a cameraman who had spent two weeks shooting a wildlife film in Ivory Coast, had probably been bitten by an infected mosquito and there was no reason to think he had passed on the infection to anyone else.

Ullmann's wife, who like two other people who traveled with the dead man has shown no sign of illness, told doctors her husband had been vaccinated against yellow fever in 1993. The treatment is considered effective for at least 10 years.

However, in about one percent of cases it does not work.

Immunization, which is compulsory for visitors to tropical regions of Africa where yellow fever is endemic, means it is most rare in Europe. The last death in Germany was in 1946.

Charite said it would maintain for the next day or two the strict quarantine regime it imposed around its isolation unit.

Guards erected barriers around the ward as German newspapers ran banner headlines warning of the ``Ebola Scare.'' The highly contagious disease is fatal in as many as four cases in five.

Tropical medicine experts had treated Ullmann wearing hermetic plastic suits but were fighting a losing battle to save him after his liver and kidneys failed Thursday.

Suttorp said he had slipped in and out of consciousness and had finally been unable to breathe. His wife was kept 80 km (50 miles) away, under medical observation at home.

Yellow fever is widespread in Africa and Latin America and, like all viruses, cannot be cured directly. Doctors can only keep victims' strength up to help their immune system fight it.

Ullmann had returned home to the eastern border town of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder Sunday and was airlifted to Berlin Tuesday after his condition deteriorated sharply.

Swissair, which flew the Ullmanns and the couple travelling with them home via Zurich, said it had handed over its passenger lists to the German authorities in line with regulations. But there was no word that fellow passengers had been warned.

Doctors said that, as Ullmann had no symptoms on the flight, it was nearly impossible he could have passed on his disease.

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 06, 1999.

8/10/99 -- 6:25 PM

Bubonic plague blamed for death in Kazakstan

MOSCOW (AP) - A 13-year old boy has died of bubonic plague in Kazakhstan after being bitten by a flea carrying the contagious disease, according to a news report Tuesday.

Ruslan Shunayev fell ill while working on a family farm near the Aral Sea, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. His illness was initially misdiagnosed, but doctors in Aralsk eventually determined he was suffering from bubonic plague, a highly contagious disease transmitted by fleas from infected rats.

Doctors were checking 20 people who had been in contact with the boy recently, the report said.

Three cases of bubonic plague have been diagnosed in the Aral Sea region recently, the report added. The disease often causes the victim to suffer a high fever and delirium.
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-- not purged (from@the.earth), August 10, 1999.