Nepal - 14 persons die unknown disease

With the new post that it is a rough and tumble part of the country, perhaps it is a bullet flu out break.

I am not sure what this is referring to....could you please elaborate?  thanks

could be Congo hemorrhagic fever.  probably not H5N1 as no pneumonia component.  Turkey just had an outbreak where more than 20 people died.

I googled it--domesticated animals are both the vector and the reservoir for the virus.

MaryR wrote: I would like someone to come right out and say it....Do you think we are in the early stages of a pandemic?????

NO
    

Welllll....we could be.

In both siblings, the clinical diagnosis was acute encephalitis. Neither patient had respiratory symptoms at presentation. These cases suggest that the spectrum of influenza H5N1 is wider than previously thought.

Anharra-this is the stuff I remember from reading "The Great Influenza", that there were so many different strainswith different symptoms, they thought they were dealing with different sicknesses across the country and world, and were often misdiagnosing it because of that. If they are only testing humans when there are sick birds in the area, how many are they missing just because they aren't testing. And how many are being missed because they have been labeled with some other illness?

Annie, yes. 

Albert,

argyll,
Nearly all businesses and non profits have PR people that write their press releases, very common.
A good thing to have folks know this resource for Avian flu discussions.

Albert wrote: How reliable is the source that originally reported this information, is the question.

Although much needing a break, time to directly contact and research Jim Henry; if possible.  Of course, if you know him well, and feel he is unreliable, that would save me some telephone mileage.

Sand, hisz.rsoe is obviously not reliable.  They issued a hazard and then pulled it.  They are as reliable as the rest of the foreign media.  Maybe JH called them and found out that their info was no good and then made them pull it?   Either way, hisz.rsoe is not an accurate source to check for future  hazards.

I have a few questions.

Ahhhh, the old blame game is on. So much for humanitarianism!


I am getting the feeling, and I cannot shake it, that we should still be watching this story...I could be very wrong, but I am sure that the initial story re: 14 people is still correct and its being "spun".

Angie: that would explain a lot.

And to think I do this for free. All right. I have contacted a photo journalist who works for the Kathmandu paper and currently trying to verify if this paper even exists anymore.  I have yet been able to find a copy of the original article referenced (hard copy on paper) and the news service who this has "filtered up from" I cannot find the article in this either.

About Nepalnews.com

Welcome to Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd. (www.mercantile.com.np), Durbar Marg, Kathmandu, Nepal's online news service and future web community – NEPALNEWS.COM. Nepalnews.com, (www.nepalnews.com) is a leading Internet destination dedicated to bring you news, events, polls, discussions, forums about and from Nepal. Our primary objective is to bring "news as it happens"; quality news which is impartial, timely and independent. Our equally important other objective is to make this a web community for all people around the globe who have any interest, or need any information about Nepal.

We obtain quality news in two ways. We have our own professional correspondents, who are actively out in the field, to bring you the latest breaking news. Then, we host a variety of different publications and newspapers, in Nepali and English, which are daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and bi-monthly. For this, we have paid for the copyrights to host at Nepalnews.com (contrary to the popular belief that the different publications are paying us to host their content). 

A superb indication of our commitment in this field is that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recognizes us as the number one site on news about Nepal and have given us permission to host their daily Nepali broadcast segment. We are also recognized by CNN and various other web sites.

Nepalnews.com offers its services to consumers free-of-charge and will derive its revenues from advertisers and e-commerce merchants. We pledge to provide the advertisers and the marketing community with the imperious proposition of reaching a highly targeted, self-segmenting audience of consumers at the time they are considering purchases.

My photojournalist contact :

Kantipur Publications - Covered the Nepalese Civil War, general news, culture, human interest, and sports at the local, national, and international levels for Nepal's largest media company. Photos featured daily in the following media:

Kathmandu Post - English language daily newspaper (circulation 45,000) serving the capital city of Kathmandu (pop. 1,500,000).

Kantipur - Nepali language daily newspaper, circulation 130,000

Nepal Weekly - Nepali language news magazine.

Kantipur Television - The national news channel of Nepal

Journal of the North Shore (circulation: 45,000) - Salem, MA. Photojournalist and reporter for this community, bi-weekly newspaper, located in a suburb of Boston.

The Signal (circulation: 12,000) - Valencia, CA. Freelance photojournalist for the daily suburban Los Angeles newspaper.

Freelance Photographer - New York City, NY

On the web - My photographs have been featured in these news sites: eKantipur (the online edition of Kantipur Publications, read by over one million people around the world), Nepal Human Rights News, United We Blog Nepal, Phalano.com.

Actor - speaking roles in theatrical motion pictures: Ron Howard's Ed-TV and George Wallace with Gary Sinise.

As Albert has stated source is what is critical on this. It is not looking good so far. Since the story is already on the net, you are going to see bounce posts which mean nothing. I am trying to contact the man who wrote the article.

ABOUT NEPAL FROM CIA FACTBOOK :

In 1951, the Nepalese monarch ended the century-old system of rule by hereditary premiers and instituted a cabinet system of government. Reforms in 1990 established a multiparty democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. A Maoist insurgency, launched in 1996, has gained traction and is threatening to bring down the regime, especially after a negotiated cease-fire between the Maoists and government forces broke down in August 2003. In 2001, the crown prince massacred ten members of the royal family, including the king and queen, and then took his own life. In October 2002, the new king dismissed the prime minister and his cabinet for "incompetence" after they dissolved the parliament and were subsequently unable to hold elections because of the ongoing insurgency. While stopping short of reestablishing parliament, the king in June 2004 reinstated the most recently elected prime minister who formed a four-party coalition government. Citing dissatisfaction with the government's lack of progress in addressing the Maoist insurgency and corruption, the king in February 2005 dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency, imprisoned party leaders, and assumed power. The king's government subsequently released party leaders and officially ended the state of emergency in May 2005, but the monarch retained absolute power until April 2006. After nearly three months of mass protests organized by the seven-party opposition and the Maoists, the king allowed parliament to reconvene on 28 April 2006.

 

 

Medclinician,
Bless you. We may not pay you, but we sure appreciate you!

Wouldn't this be the type of thing one could expect to happen if TSHTF? No country wants to be "the one" where this all starts. The immediate economic ramifications are unbelievable.
News blackouts, denial, retracking news announced...I think it would even happen here in the US. The way things are going, the recent events don't make me feel like this is a false alarm, but the way things will unfold.

Hi all,

Why is this topic called "China - 14 persons die unknown disease" if the newssources make clear that it's about NEPAL and not about China? Wouldn't it be better to have the title of this thread edited so it's clear this is about the - still - Hindu Kingdom of Nepal?

Here's a map of the districts of Nepal; Nuwakot District is in the Central Region just north/north-west of Kathmandu, neighbouring the Kathmandu Valley and with the Himalayas to the north-east:

http://ncthakur.itgo.com/map04.htm

(If some mod here can make that URL "clickable", I owe him/her...)

I've looked up the source that keeps being mentioned for this alarming news: the Kathmandu Post. Read the small newsarticle in its online PDF edition of yesterday, August 19. And to the best of my knowledge The Kathmandu Post (and eKantipur.com that it belongs to) is indeed a reliable newssource throughout the years.
Which does nót mean, however, that the reported number of victims and the period concerned need to be fully accurate. Clearly the newssource depended on information they received from the district. But the whole situation is being checked out more properly now, or so it seems, with a medical team being sent to investigate matters.

For your info I've e-mailed this news today to a few contacts in Nepal, and I've posted it out on a few online webforums either for Nepal or (Dutch ones) for bird flu. Remember that back in 2003 not H5N1 but a different yet also deadly strain ( H7N7) hit The Netherlands, killing one of our vets... Any of you here with  (personal)  e-mail  contacts  in Nepal/Ktm  Valley  should perhaps do the same: contact them and ask if they have more or better  information meanwhile.

Will let you know here should I receive any interesting reactions on what may be taking place there in Nuwakot at present. Fourteen victims in only a few weeks time and in such a limited area indeed sounds incredible.

Mieke,

Welcome to AFT. Thanks so much for your informative post. I started a thread regarding the 2003 H7N7 Netherlands just recently. I think it is an important story, and if you have anything to add I would be very grateful. Regards, Argyll. Hope all is well in the Netherlands!

Thanks Argyll. I'll try to contribute some more here in the near future, and will certainly also look up your thread on the epidemic in Holland with the H7N7 strain.

As for how things are over here at present: not so good, I'm afraid. Because in the southern province of Limburg we now have an outbreak of "blue tongue" disease among sheep, with several farms being affected. Meanwhile in Belgium too (Liège-area). But that's off-topic for this board, though highly alarming as well and for the entire EU since this disease - spread by infected midgets - was until now never found anywhere "north of southern France", due to temperatures mostly.

speak later!

I

I have recently joined, today in fact, but have been keeping track of forums and news articles, Information overload seems to be setting in and the boy who cried wolf is crying more often, Hope this is another of hose times, but think maybe it's not. Living in Australia, there is no news on BF coming from our newspaper at all. only way is reading foreign papers, Do I trust them? No, but a grain of truth is usually there. Like the house insurance I have paid of 20 years and never needed, my stockpile of food and medicines are something I fill safer having, especially today

@ medclinician
At present, but I don't know for how long (probably not very long, judging by the simple URL), this is the URL of the PDF version, page 2, of yesterday's Kathmandu Post (English edition) with that small but alarming  newsitem.

http://www.kantipuronline.com/pdf/tkp2.pdf



And here is Reuter's Alert Net, issued today:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DHA295996.htm

"Regional Asia health meet seeks bird flu strategy"

Wait till they hear about Nuwakot...

Btw I'll also  mail a Nepali journalist (someone who works for a different paper), and ask for more information on what's going on, and rather near the capital. (The capital has a population, unofficially, of some 2 mio people at least). I hope he'll manage to find out more.