Hong Kong worried over scarlet fever outbreak

The city's health authorities declared an outbreak on Tuesday and expressed concern the scarlet fever bacterium involved has mutated into a strain that appears to be resistant to traditional antibiotic treatment and which may also be more transmissible.

Source article

So it appears that we have yet another old disease that has mutated, become resistant to antibiotics, and is much more transmittable than its traditional form. It also appears that this disease is almost targeting children in a way.

Much as I hate to say it, I really am starting to pay close attention to the folks talking about bioengineered diseases. I mean, two species of disease-causing bacteria doing practically the same thing within just a matter of a few months is both unnerving and kind of suspicious.

Apparently very virulent too.

Scarlet fever strain more virulent

Scientists at the University of Hong Kong have warned that the strain of scarlet fever that has already killed two children and infected dozens of others has mutated and become more contagious.

"This (mutation) may nicely explain the 'unusual' large outbreak of the scarlet fever in Hong Kong recently," Thomas Tsang, director of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Monday.

He added that the Chinese mainland and Macao also face widespread outbreaks of the disease.

Whether it's engineered or not I guess we will never know for sure. The population densities in that part of the world, stuff is going to spread and mutate more than in less crowded areas.



Scarlet fever hits Hong Kong

Scarlet fever infections have gone up around 5-fold in China, and 3-fold in Macau, about an hour by ferry from Hong Kong.

Given how China covered up SARS for so long, I wonder how long this has been on the slow burner in mainlaind China before popping up in Hong Kong?

reply to post by gnosticquasar





Maybe it really is engineered, maybe these are the last bits of the puzzle coming together to kick off WW3?

I wonder about bio-engineering too. I thought the way bugs became antibiotic resistant was through constant exposure to antibiotics. If scarlet fever has been in the populace enough to become resistant to antibiotics it seems like the non-antibiotic resistant form of scarlet fever would have been more of a problem than it has been, and I am not aware of scarlet fever being prevalent enough for that to happen up to this point.