A recent observation has caused me great concern. I enjoy watching the National Geographic and Science Channels to relax. I watched 2 programs within a 2 week period that gave conflicting information on the disease that decimated Native American populations around the time of Cortez.

The first, was new evidence that it was a Hantavirus that was the guilty disease. Linking the affects of the disease, severe bleeding from mouth, mucus membranes etc., to known diseases from Europe at the time didn't pan out. There is no evidence to support this claim that has been taught in our schools since I was a child. The disease description matched the affects of Hantavirus. After studying the break out of this deadly disease in 1992 and 1993, near where I lived in the South West, the mice responsible for this outbreak were associated with weather patterns of abundant rain following a drought. Tree ring dating matched these conditions to the area where Cortez interacted with the Native Americans. The infected rodent population in proximity with people and food, following this extended drought, put these populations at grave risk. In the more recent outbreak in the South West U.S., the center for disease control quickly identified the infected mice and were able to neutralize them, preventing the spread of Hantavirus.

The second program that addressed the issue was about viruses, and gave the old information we have received since our youth in our public schools. It blamed the epidemic on Smallpox, while the evidence we have for that epidemic does not support this. Latter, smallpox WAS introduced into native population, in U.S. and it's territories, by what is believed to have been, contaminated trade blankets. No mention was made of the hantavirus in this program.

The danger of misinformation is this. After extended drought from Laninio, the South Western U.S. is once more entering into Laninia, a period of higher than average rain fall that has been tied to this pattern of hantavirus. The populations of these areas are unaware of the health risk,
and are not taking the necessary precautions. The last time this disease outbreak was mostly isolated in a remote region of reservation. The out break was in the 4 Corners Area of the U.S.
Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. After a relatively quiet period, much of the U.S., including the South West, is beginning to change the weather pattern from drought to above average rain fall. Deaths from hantavirus have already begun to be identified, 4 that I know of in Colorado in 2007, and 2 more in Wyoming in 2008. As we are just starting the full scale transition into Laninia, There is time to take necessary precautions to be prepared for the resulting explosion in rodent populations. The hantavirus is here, but rodent populations are the key.

Education has always been our best defense against disease. There is no treatment for this killer.
I believe the Myan epidemic resulted in up to 80% population reduction of the affected area.

Here is a helpful link.
http://www.esa.org/education_diversity/pdf.../hantavirus.pdf

Dan

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/04-0684.htm


^-- Not exactly on key but very interesting.

DuzmA,

Thank you for the link.

"We could not show that vaccine effectiveness estimates were significant. All of our confidence intervals have lower bounds less than zero. Therefore, while point estimates show effectiveness, this finding could be due to chance. Of course, the range of point estimates in studies with relatively small samples can be wide, and wide confidence intervals that include zero are not uncommon in many studies on vaccine effectiveness (9). However, caution is appropriate in interpreting our estimates of vaccine effectiveness.

Finally, this study represents a short-term (7.3 months average) evaluation of protective effectiveness of three doses of the hantavirus vaccine. To assess the long-term effectiveness, protection must be monitored over a longer period.

The authors do not have commercial or other associations that might pose a conflict of interest. In addition, this work had no financial support.

Dr. Park is an epidemiologist in the National Cancer Center, Goyang, Republic of Korea. His area of interest is the evaluation of preventive measures in public health area."


While this vaccine is of questionable value, that there is one at all is promising. At least in Korea,
someone realizes the epidemic potential and is working on the problem.

I would like to see a vaccine for the strains we have in the Americas as well, especially the new strain discovered in the 1992/93 outbreak in the 4 corners area. I am no expert, and wonder how affective even a proven vaccine for one strain of hantavirus will be on this new, different strain.
Like flu vaccines, will a change in the infecting virus be significant enough to prevent an otherwise affective vaccine from working?

Dan