Forget West Nile, Have you heard of Rift Valley Fever?

first off I i really hate mosquitoes and it's mosquito season here, so maybe that's why this struck me...

Read this article, what am I missing? it says that the last known case was in 2001, the disease is currently not in North America, the disease could be used as a weapon, so why the alert now? Is there a threat that we don't know about? Why should we be aware of symptoms? I think there is greater chance of mosquito borne viruses around than we are led to believe...and that this may be very likely probability in the near future...

btw....how does a mosquito travel from africa to north america? I wasn't aware of any birds who fly from africa to the usa..but that's just my lack of knowledge.

Federal Health Officials Alert To Threat Of New Mosquito Disease
ATLANTA -- As if West Nile virus wasn't bad enough, now U.S. health officials are on the lookout for another mosquito-bourne disease, fearing it could become a permanent part of the American landscape if it entered the country.

Rift Valley fever, which originated in Africa, is the only disease at the top of both human health and agriculture lists of dangerous diseases.

The virus can kill people, with a near 1 percent mortality rate, making it deadlier than West Nile. But Rift Valley poses a greater threat to cattle and sheep.

It kills up to 30 percent of the livestock it infects and if it were found in animals here, it would probably prompt livestock bans by other countries.

"This is not a disease that occurs here now, but we want to make sure people are aware of the signs and symptoms," said Dr. Thomas Ksiazek, chief of the special pathogens branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The medical and public health community need to be mindful of it."

"I think people weren't very worried about it until we started to think about agri-terror," Brown said.

The disease could appear here as mysteriously as West Nile, which first showed up as the culprit in the unexplained deaths of birds in New York in 1999.

I do know that the US investigated the possibilities of using Rift Valley fever as a Biological Warfare agent. Most countries list it as a possible BW agent, spread by aerosol or by using mosquitos as a vector.

www.cbwinfo.com...

zero lift

Thoes bugs get here like most other bugs .(imports ) come in by ship and the bugs just hich a ride .With moderen day infostructer transportation if there was a BAD virse that got louse anyware in the world it could very well be in ever country within a week causing a world wide epadenic.
Just look at what the black plag did hunderds of years agaio and all they had was horse and buggie to spread it. ( black plag was carred by fleas wich were on the rats) millions died. All that lived got amiuntie to it and there kids as well. The black plag today is a form of the commin cold.
Ps its not a question of if there will be another out brake but when will there be another out brake.

is there a bug that produces spelling difficulty as it's first symptom? is it transmittable via internet message boards? let's hope not.

Originally posted by victor was right
is there a bug that produces spelling difficulty as it's first symptom? is it transmittable via internet message boards?

let's hope not.

Victor...that's really not funny....I guess you are ignorant to the fact that there are people with real reading disabilities, and even if is just because English is not the member's first language is not funny either...

There are medical problems that can cause someone to misspell, like dyslexia. If you think that this gives you the right to make fun of people.....Thank you very much for spreading your ignorance....


[edit on 27-6-2004 by Muaddib]