digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

New West Nile virus strain may worsen epidemic

reuters.com — A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday. The virus infected an estimated 175,000 people last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its weekly report on death and disease on Thursday.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 6, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

36 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+28I'm safe because my Norton is up to date.
  • guytoronto, on 07/06/2008, -3/+30Think that's bad? In any given year, one particular virus (not West Nile) will infect 20-60 million people, and kill 35,000+. Compare that to West Nile (35,000 infections, 117 deaths).

    So why are we panicking over West Nile, when there is a much more deadly virus out there?

    Because the media loves to blow things out of proportion for the sake of selling their headlines.

    That virus that kills 35,000+ American citizens every year? The flu.
  • Skab, on 07/06/2008, -0/+9OH NOEZ burn the lakes!!! kill the birds, maime the cows WERE ALL DOOMED i tells yah DOOMED!!!

    in all seriousness though, 35,000 to the flu, 20,000 to guns 450,000 smoking 50,000 dui accidents, 1000 per year in war, this is nothing big
  • Magee1205, on 07/06/2008, -0/+6I'm not your guy, friend.
  • smashingmonkey, on 07/06/2008, -0/+6I'm not your guy, buddy.
  • tunafizzle, on 07/06/2008, -0/+5Great comment there, Guy.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+5Point well taken, Guy.
  • arcticblue, on 07/06/2008, -1/+4"dagorret, i dugg this article...if you digg two of mine i'll
    come bag and dig the article of the two that you linked me to."

    And that right there folks is why digg sucks now.
  • Gaffigan, on 07/06/2008, -1/+4*Nervously glances at the dozen or so mosquito bites I received while camping the past week*
  • Lionhart, on 07/06/2008, -0/+3Are you that insecure about your dig e-peen that you have to try and make deals to get people to digg your crap?
  • Rev0lver, on 07/06/2008, -0/+3I thought this died out with all the other small pox and anthrax scares back in the beginning of the decade. Grow a pair, America.
  • deadowl, on 07/06/2008, -0/+2A number of years ago I talked to someone who worked for the CDC and she said it's really only a big deal for people like the elderly, and not really something to worry about. In essence, it's just media hype. Possibly to create a greater investment for the industry to create a vaccine? I'm honestly more worried about Lyme disease among the canine population.
  • SixOrSoPapers, on 07/06/2008, -0/+2Famous last words.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+2 The number is small but the growth rate isn't. Ten years ago or so having 100 cases was big news.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -1/+3 When this first hit it wiped out all of the crows in my neighborhood, they are only now just starting to come back. Amazing that both West Nile and Lyme disease originated within a birds flight of the Plum Island disease research center.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1Fred Phelps is that you?
  • RyKSych, on 07/06/2008, -1/+2How pathetic... using caps to be heard ; ;
  • tunafizzle, on 07/06/2008, -1/+2I'm not your buddy, guy
  • AgentMull, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1Come Join, and contribute to Pastor Richard's Salvation Statue fund...
  • scy1192, on 07/06/2008, -2/+3oh, I thought you were talking about HIV.
  • Barackalypse, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1I'm sorry, but since when is 175,000 cases of something in a country with 350 million an epidemic? Buried for sensationalism. If you're going to try and scare me at least come up with something new, don't just pull out a slightly more dangerous version of last year's non-issue pandemic.
  • CobaltBlue, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1Thanks for the story, Mr. Harvey. :)
  • Kormiku, on 07/06/2008, -1/+2take you and your god and get out of here
  • superkendall, on 07/06/2008, -1/+2The headline was kind of alarmist. First of all, the new strain does not (as far as I could make out from the article) appear to actually be any worse for humans (not that the original is a walk in the park, but 117 deaths per year is pretty low).

    Secondly, the difference is that the newer strain does better in hotter weather, so they are saying it will become more of an issue in the north where the summers are hot. But too hot, and the mosquitoes die early and then it doesn't spread as much. So it seems more like this would simply shift the zone of affected areas more than greatly increase spread of the disease. We'll see how the numbers come out after the summer has passed, especially with so many more mosquitos in Iowa now...
  • McHoffa, on 07/07/2008, -0/+1west nile, bird flu, anthrax... always something to scare regular folk into being compliant... oh, and increasing ratings on the news
  • ttam, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1Ahh, It never feels like summer until the yearly west nile scare.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -1/+2West Nile Virus may be rare, but it is pretty nasty. Without medicine the person infected will almost certainly die, and with medicine they will be physically exhausted for months. My dog caught West Nile Virus and he's nearly died from it. He managed to live but it's messed him up pretty bad; he doesn't have hardly as much energy as before.
  • blackcloud333, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1The CAPS LOCK button is to the left of the A key, buddy. You can type normally without text yelling. Any anti-heathen knows that.
  • johndi, on 07/06/2008, -1/+1It's not as rare as you think. 80% of infected people will fight it off without so much as a sneeze. Most of the rest will feel pretty ***** for a few days (occasionally up to a few weeks). Only 1 in 150 will get seriously ill. I think it's those rare cases you are considering to have got the disease, and they will need medical attention.

    http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_facts ...
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+0meh, all i can say now is i'm new to digg and you
    are all cooler than i am.
  • xciton, on 07/06/2008, -1/+1Ummm... May because the common flu doesn't normally kill the host (it's other compounding factors that do), but the West Nile's has a much greater determent on the host and has been known to kill an otherwise healthy host?
  • 8ballblack, on 07/06/2008, -0/+0A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States. How can a virus be spreading "better"? Shouldn't it be worse, as in it is getting worse as it is traveling across the US faster?
  • rrc589, on 07/06/2008, -3/+1k, pal.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -4/+2McAfee or gtfo.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -3/+0well he asked me to digg his in the 1st place.
    your elitist attitude is why you suck and have always sucked.
  • inactive, on 07/06/2008, -14/+1Indeed, things are a tad sensationalized by the media....(see global warming)...but the biggest joke next to global warming might have to be the bird flu.

    dagorret, i dugg this article...if you digg two of mine i'll
    come bag and dig the article of the two that you linked me to.

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.