Robots and the "New Flu"

The article that I chose is called “’Vomiting Larry’: Puking Robot Helps Scientists Study Spread of Norovirus” and was a Reuters article published by Fox News on January 3, 2013 at the following link: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/01/03/vomiting-larry-puking-robot-helps-scientists-study-spread-norovirus/
 

It’s another rough winter in New England.  The flu outbreaks this year are as bad as ever.  However, this year there is a new virus spreading in certain parts of the United States more rapidly and with more severe symptoms than those of the regular flu.  It is called the norovirus.  The norovirus has affected over a million people this year in Britain alone.  In the U.S. the numbers are even greater.  In the U.S., “the Centers for Disease Control say norovirus causes 21 million illnesses annually.”  Each person infected by this disease suffers violent vomiting and diarrhea.

There have been, however, some improvements in trying to find ways to stop the spread of the virus.  Studies are being done with the help of a robot named Vomiting Larry.  This robot was developed at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Derbyshire, Northern England and has been used to test how far florescent markers in virus droplets spread once the sickness is released.  With help from robots and other technology, scientists are learning more and more about the spread of norovirus.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that “the virus changes constantly, making it a moving target for drug developers”.  Scientists believe that until more is learned about this disease, it will be the second coming of the common cold only with worse, more flu-like symptoms.

 This article truly amazed me because personally, I had never heard of the norovirus before.  The virus is a violent stomach virus, is extremely contagious and,  like the common cold, there is no remedy for it.   Like we talked about in class, microbes can be lurking anywhere and we need to be cautious.  We need to be even more cautious because the spread of this disease is so hard to prevent.  Many types of disinfectants and cleaning fluids do not destroy this virus.  The article states “What makes this such a formidable enemy is its ability to evade death from cleaning and to survive long periods outside a human host”.  The virus can survive in still water for months, possibly years.  This just shows how incredibly durable this disease is.  I find it really interesting how one person with this virus on a cruise ship recently got everyone on the cruise sick in a matter of days.  It just shows you how unbelievably fast this disease moves.  It must really be an unenjoyable experience to have this illness and I hope I never catch I personally.  I am glad that I came across this article and will make sure to be careful this winter and avoid the virus at all costs.  What do you guys think?

Haitian Cholera Spreads to Havana

A public notification sign warning about cholera in Havana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haitian Cholera  Spreads to Havana

Looking for an alternative news source, I searched the al-Jazeera English website for news about epidemic disease. Finding an article about the spread of cholera in Cuba made me think about the comparative epidemics the two countries face; theirs, a cholera epidemic that, combined with the affliction of people across neighboring Haiti, marks as one of the worst in decades; ours, a particularly virulent and dangerous strain of influenza, which has killed 20 children as of mid-January. This story, published today under the original title Cuba Acknowledges Cholera Outbreak in Havana, can be accessed at http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/201311623818820618.html

After several weeks of news stories bombarding America with details on the influenza outbreak, I thought that a look back at the Caribbean cholera epidemic would be a welcome change of pace. As our class may remember, we learned about the spread of cholera to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, before which the disease had not been seen in the country for several decades. It is suspected that Nepalese aid workers brought cholera with them, and the infection spread rapidly in the impoverished island country due to a lack of proper housing and adequate infrastructure. Around the same time, we learned from another blog post that the disease had spread to eastern Cuba, likely by Haitian refugees traveling across the small passage that separates Cuba and Hispaniola. Now we have news of the spread of cholera to Havana, the Cuban capital and the largest city on the island. I consider this to be a likely continuation of the Haitian epidemic that began in the winter of 2010.

According to the article, the Cuban ministry of public health has acknowledged that since the start of the outbreak on January 6th, 51 people have so far been struck with cholera in Haiti, centered around the Cerro neighborhood. While the government has stated that nobody has died yet from the outbreak, there is at least one suspected case of a man who began vomiting severely in December of 2012, and died two weeks later on January 2nd. Rain, which contributes to the spread of the disease, is common in January, but so far the weather has been drier than normal. The last outbreak, which occurred in August of 2012 and resulted in three deaths, was limited to the province of Granma, far to the east of Havana. There is some speculation that Hurricane Sandy, which resulted in the destruction of over 200,000 homes in Cuba before hitting the United States, caused floods that may have contributed to the outbreak. American diplomats in Cuba have urged visitors to take appropriate sanitation measures, and European ambassadors are likely to do the same when more information is made public. 

I believe this epidemic can only get worse from here. While this flu season in America has been particularly deadly, there is a predictable break during the summer; there will be no such respite for the Caribbean. Haiti alone has seen 7,200 people die as a result of cholera, a death toll 360 times higher than the current American fatalities from influenza. With the disease now in Havana (home to over two million people), it is almost certain that the death toll will climb significantly, even with Cuba's medical services that are so highly regarded in Latin America. It is even possible that, with the renewing of the hurricane season in a few months and a number of overseas tourists that dwarf any comparable Haitian tourism, the epidemic will spread to other parts of the Caribbean or even outside the Americas. The United States is not likely to be hit, as advanced medical care combined with a thorough system of sewage treatment will likely halt any epidemic before it can become a serious problem in America.

We will, however, always have next year's flu season to guard against.