- Note the 4th and 5th paragraph below and then read the
links below that are filed on Rense.com:
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- http://www.rense.com/general37/treat.htm
- http://www.rense.com/general37/SARStreatmentideas.pdf
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- Bob Lee
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- NewScientist.com news service
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- An excessive immune reaction appears to be the fatal
factor in patients who die of SARS, according to medical data from Hong
Kong. The best estimate of the fatality rate of SARS is rising steadily
and so understanding how the disease causes death is critical to finding
the best treatments.
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- Scientists have also discovered that the SARS virus can
remain viable for at least 24 hours after being deposited in a droplet
on a plastic surface - a simulation, for example, of an infected person
coughing on to the wall of a lift.
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- The new information was revealed by Klaus St°hr,
the World Health Organization's chief scientist for SARS in a briefing
earlier this week. "In the first week or so of disease the virus is
replicating mainly in the upper respiratory tract, causing high fever and
dry cough. But in the second week we see an over-reaction of the immune
response, and in 20 per cent of cases that leads to very severe disease."
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- Mark Salter, WHO's coordinator for the clinical management
of SARS, told New Scientist that this excessive response seems to be destroying
the alveoli, the tiny sacs at the end of the lung tubing where the oxygen
is absorbed. It is like stripping all the leaves from a tree, he says,
making breathing extremely difficult.
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- "The immune response develops, but then continues
growing unchecked" says Salter. "You then get cytokines, tumour
necrosis factor and so on released not just at the virally infected cells
they are supposed to kill, but throughout the tissue". This also happens
in other diseases but the mechanism is not entirely understood, and certainly
not in the case of SARS, he says.
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- Flare up
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- Nevertheless the observation significantly strengthens
the basis on which doctors can select the treatments given to patients.
In particular, it suggests the use of corticosteroids, alongside other
drugs that reduce the viral load such as interferon.
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- Corticosteroids suppress the immune system and are normally
used against asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and in transplant patients to
reduce the risk of rejection.
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- Their use does raise the risk of further infection, but
Hong Kong hospitals are claiming success with combinations of the antiviral
ribavirin and pulsed steroids, says Salter: "And once steroids are
stopped, they see a flare up of the condition suggesting there is a significant
immune component to the disease."
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- The issue of how long the virus survives outside the
body was also raised by St°hr. Some scientists have argued that long
survival could explain unusual cases of transmission in Hong Kong and Canada.
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- In a study in Germany reported by St°hr, the virus
was dropped in liquid on to a plastic surface, the drop was dried, and
examined after 24 hours. "There were 10,000 virus units per millitre
before, and after 24 hours there were 1000 - and that was viable viruses."
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- - Robert Walgate
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