http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061128/OPINION/211280340/1183/OPINION01
It's a too-small world, in a way, and things go around faster and faster. Thus we have the exotic-sounding chikungunya virus, which some public-health experts believe could be more dangerous to U.S. public health than the West Nile virus. After all, hundreds of millions of people travel internationally every year. Often they pass through the Third World, where there is little or no public-health agency monitoring of such diseases, little known in the developed world. More and more of these mysterious diseases are likely to show up in America.
The chikungunya virus, which originated in Africa, has spread from the tropics to the United States and Europe. "This virus has exploded. People must start to pay attention," Philippe Parola, a French scientist, told an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference this month. The disease causes fever, chills, nausea, joint pain and, in some cases, neurological damage. It has caused thousands of deaths out of the several million people who have contracted the illness in the past year, mostly in the Third World.
The virus is mostly spread through mosquitoes, so the southern United States is most at risk. But, of course, we in the Northeast have plenty of mosquitoes, too, for up to six months a year. And there has been some human-to-human transmission of the virus, with blood transfusions as one medium.
Some public-health officials have expressed concern that chikungunya, as an emerging disease, might not be adequately identified and monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies. Well, it's difficult to keep up with all these evolving diseases. But suffice it to say that as soon as one disease is vanquished, nature, in its complex glory, will come up with another. Which means, among other things, that U.S. immigration officials will have to redouble their efforts to check newcomers for ailments & especially people from tropical climes where diseases are most likely to develop.
It's a too-small world, in a way, and things go around faster and faster. Thus we have the exotic-sounding chikungunya virus, which some public-health experts believe could be more dangerous to U.S. public health than the West Nile virus. After all, hundreds of millions of people travel internationally every year. Often they pass through the Third World, where there is little or no public-health agency monitoring of such diseases, little known in the developed world. More and more of these mysterious diseases are likely to show up in America.
The chikungunya virus, which originated in Africa, has spread from the tropics to the United States and Europe. "This virus has exploded. People must start to pay attention," Philippe Parola, a French scientist, told an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference this month. The disease causes fever, chills, nausea, joint pain and, in some cases, neurological damage. It has caused thousands of deaths out of the several million people who have contracted the illness in the past year, mostly in the Third World.
The virus is mostly spread through mosquitoes, so the southern United States is most at risk. But, of course, we in the Northeast have plenty of mosquitoes, too, for up to six months a year. And there has been some human-to-human transmission of the virus, with blood transfusions as one medium.
Some public-health officials have expressed concern that chikungunya, as an emerging disease, might not be adequately identified and monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies. Well, it's difficult to keep up with all these evolving diseases. But suffice it to say that as soon as one disease is vanquished, nature, in its complex glory, will come up with another. Which means, among other things, that U.S. immigration officials will have to redouble their efforts to check newcomers for ailments & especially people from tropical climes where diseases are most likely to develop.
