HANTAVIRUS : Pandemic imminent

A second person has died within a month from the rare rodent-borne disease hantavirus after visiting one of the most popular parts of Yosemite National Park.
The first victim, a 37-year-old Alameda County man, is believed to have contracted the disease while staying in a tent cabin at the park's Curry Village in mid June. Details of the latest victim have not been released.
There has been one other confirmed case of the illness, and a fourth possible case is currently being investigated.
Efforts underway to contact visitors who stayed in tent accommodation in the park's Curry Village between June and August
Hantaviruses are spread through rodent bites, urine or saliva.
Humans infected can develop potentially fatal diseases, hemorrhagic fever and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Early symptoms are similar to the flu and include chills, fever and muscle aches.
Sufferers may may begin to feel better for a short time, but within 1-2 days, experience breathing difficulties, a dry cough vomiting and headaches.
Of the 587 documented U.S. cases since the virus was identified in 1993, about one-third proved fatal. There is no specific treatment for the virus.
Almost all cases involving humans have been linked to contact with rodent excrement. Howver human-to-human transmission has been reported with the Andes mountains in South America.
The name hantavirus comes from the Hantan River area in South Korea, from where teh first cases were identified in the late 1970s.
The disease was formerly known as Korean hemorrhagic fever.
During the Korean war Several thousand United Nations soldiers became ill with the disease sparking a 25-year search for the cause.

This could be the new Pandemic, the worldwide killer that wipes out mankind ,in the 14th century the Black Death wiped out 25 million people and this was before planes and easy travel throughout the world, if that many people died in the 14th century imagine the destruction and devestation in the modern world where you can jump on a plane tomorrow and end up in Timbuktoo ,25 million would be like chicken feed ,make no mistake this has no cure and if it goes airborne and can be transmitted through handshakes ,coughs and sneezes ,the world will have no need to be worried about any asteroid hitting or Yellowstone erupting in 2012.
************* UPDATE *****************************

There are now 12000 people affected and that's the ones we know about, how many more ,are we being told the total truth about this ,in less than a week thousands more infected ,imagine a month, a year ,5 yrs from now planet earth could be the corpse planet ,maybe this is why their looking at other planets that could support life.

Pandemic report stresses need to be prepared

The Emerging Risks Team has issued a new report on pandemics.

The Emerging Risks Team at Lloyd’s has issued a new report on the threat posed by a global pandemic.

The report concludes that a pandemic is inevitable, explaining that with historic recurrence rates of 30-50 years it is prudent to assume that a pandemic will occur sometime in the future.

Trevor Maynard, Manager, Emerging Risks, at Lloyd’s and the report’s author says: “The significant message is that society should not optimise to one particular scenario as a worst case. Much has been said of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, which is said to have killed up to 100 million people worldwide. While Avian Flu is seen as the most likely next pandemic, we have to ensure we are prepared for other types of pandemics that may require different responses and pose different challenges —some of which may well have higher rates of mortality than flu.”

The report explores the threat of pandemic in terms of insured losses, with Maynard saying the economic impact could be significant depending on the scenario.

“The threat of pandemic to the global economy cannot be underestimated,” he explains. “If you look at the example of a recent limited pandemic, such as SARS, the regional economic impact was severe and a repeat of the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak,