Brave new world of infections...

Get used to SARS, West Nile, hantavirus, Ebola, Nipah, Hendra, AIDS and other nasty infectious diseases. Health experts say we're living in a new age of infections.

And we have mostly ourselves to blame.

The nation's top scientists say that environmental, economic, social and scientific changes have helped to trigger an unprecedented explosion of more than 35 new infectious diseases that have burst upon the world in the past 30 years. The U.S. death rate from infectious disease, which dropped in the first part of the 20th century and then stabilized, is now double what it was in 1980.

www.bayarea.com...

Any more good news...??? [sarcasm off]

2 in Shelby, DeSoto may have SARS
By Mary Powers
[email protected]
May 16, 2003

Two Mid-South men were quarantined at home Thursday with the high fever, cough and other symptoms that prompted public health officials to suspect the atypical pneumonia dubbed SARS.

The men - residents of Shelby and DeSoto counties - developed symptoms within 10 days of returning from Toronto and Hong Kong, both hot spots of severe acute respiratory syndrome, state health officials said.

www.gomemphis.com...