Camels May Transmit New Middle Eastern Virus 163
sciencehabit writes "Ever since people in the Middle East started dying of a mysterious new infection last year, scientists have been trying to pinpoint the source of the outbreak. Now they may finally have found a clue in an unlikely population: retired racing camels. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates produce and consume large amounts of camel meat. The authors of the paper point out that huge numbers of camels are imported to the Middle East from African countries as well as from Australia, where the animals were introduced in the 19th century and which now has an estimated 1 million feral camels. (Australia started exporting camels to Saudi Arabia for meat production in 2002.) That raises the possibility that African or Australian bats harbor the virus and camels carried it to the Middle East."
Conspiracy Theory (Score:1)
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I am sure there is a joke in their somewhere....
An arab and a camel walk into a bar... ... ... ... ...
You got the virus....
Um.... (Score:1)
Camels spit without much provocation, making it near trivial to obtain saliva, so lame way to wind up an article, sorry. As well, this is most likely an engineered virus/contamination, deployed as one of many around the globe by nare-do-wells looking to prune the world's general population. Follow the money and don't waste too much more time on ferals...of any type.
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As well, this is most likely an engineered virus/contamination, deployed as one of many around the globe by nare-do-wells looking to prune the world's general population.
WTF, did /. get all the people who were banned from infowars and prisonplanet for being too paranoid?
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Until you read that Saddam et al were trying to weaponize camel pox. That virus was chosen because it was assumed that the local (middle eastern) population would have been exposed and thus largely immune to it. Never know, they might have been able to get it to work.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/bw/program.htm [fas.org]
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if the truth hurts so bad go back to watching CNN
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Never use an expression in writing that you have only heard spoken aloud.
-- S. Johnson (Dr)
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nose swab in a camel [...] nare-do-wells
Never use an expression in writing that you have only heard spoken aloud.
Nare\, n. [L. naris.] A nostril. [R.] --B. Jonson. [reference.com]
Never give someone a ration of shit for using a word you don't understand, or you will look like an asshole. --drinkypoo
Gibraltar and the Falklands are ours, greaseball (Score:2)
Despite being some kind of dago or wop it seems you're more of an expert on my native language than I am. So would you care to enlighten us as to what a "nostril do well" is supposed to mean?
And while you're at it, can you show why the commonly accepted form involving the omission of the "v" from "never" to give "ne'er" - which actually does make semantic sense - is wrong?
Words are one thing. Phrases are another, and sentences another still. Arrogant, ignorant wetback fucktards are yet another, and you'r
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I don't know who S. Johnson is, but that's been my .sig for decades.
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Samuel Johnson [wikipedia.org].
That'll be 25 cents. PayPal accepted. No bitcoins.
MERS Worldwide apocalypse (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MERS Worldwide apocalypse (Score:4, Insightful)
For the Hajj, the Saudis screen everyone coming into the country for visible sickness.
And you can't even get a visa without providing proof of vaccinations.
They may have backwards laws, but they are well aware of the risks surrounding outbreaks of disease.
That said, they haven't been very cooperative with the global medical community in addressing MERS.
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And you can't even get a visa without providing proof of vaccinations.
FWIW pretty near every country does this to some degree.
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If it's new (I confess to skiming TFA) is there any vaccine for it?
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So they're insisting on people taking a non-existent vaccine? How does that work, then?
It'd be hilarious if it could be cured by bacon sandwiches and beer. In fact I'd probably catch it on purpose.
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"WE'RE NOT TAKING ANY FUCKING CHANCES."
~ The President of Madagascar, earlier today.
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Getting a little hysterical now, aren't we?
They've been doing this for a long time. They have lots of doctors figuring it out. Pilgrims are required to get vaccinations. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2u48UKUiN7P-J4kpKLxAebg0ovg?docId=CNG.acecd21530a5cd7893d6d481941594e6.261 [google.com]
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The Haj is coming soon (i believe it will be October). If MERS escapes into the pilgrim population, it will be a global disaster.
* The good news: MERS may not be that bad, human-to-human transmission is low [wikipedia.org].
* The bad news: there's another one making progress [ibtimes.com], and this may be the winner between the two.
Take your popcorn, set yourself comfy on the couch and watch (:grin: - it may well be the last time you're doing it)
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Biggest problem is heart attacks among elderly people. http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7483/133 [bmj.com]?
Since hand-washing one of the most important ways of infection control, that's a fortunate convergence.
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Great, because there aren't any at all in London, Berlin, Brussels, Paris...
I hear the US has even been allowing them in recently.
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why did Muslims think it would be a good idea to hijack airplanes and fly them into the World Trade Center on 9/11?
why do ignorant fools keep lapping up the shit that spews from their government?
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hey trolls need food stamps too
No bats around here. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I live in Alice Springs. We're in the centre of Australia. Plenty of trees. Lots of microbats. Lots of camels, too.
There are'nt that many trees at Uluru, but tourists go out at dusk to see amongst other things...the microbats. They even have a camel farm there. I believe they round them up from feral ones.
Nice "retirement" plan (Score:5, Funny)
I guess this is what you call "a camelwoe".
Here's the NEJM article (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1306742 [nejm.org]
Hospital Outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus
N Engl J Med 2013; 369:407-416 August 1, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1306742
Free, no paywall.
Good diagram here.
http://www.nejm.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1056%2FNEJMoa1306742&iid=f02 [nejm.org]
Blame the French (Score:1)
A respected captain in the foreign legion was transferred to a remote desert outpost. On his orientation tour, he noticed a very old camel tied out behind the barracks.
He asked the sergeant, "Why is a camel tied to the barracks?"
The sergeant replied, "It's a long way from anywhere, and the men have natural sexual urges, so when they do, uh, we have the camel."
"Well, I suppose if it's good for morale, then I guess it's all right with me."
After he had been stationed at the fort for six long, lonely months, th
karma (Score:1)
Settlers bring viruses to native australians, australian bats spread viruses to humans across the world. The circle of life?
Let me get this straight (Score:1)
Let me get this straight: the first human cases of a viral outbreak in the middle east might very well have literally been camel jockeys? Hang on, I'm writing this down so I can come up with a better joke for work tomorrow.
Guess it's true: Smoke Kills (Score:2)
wait, not that kind of camel?
Waking Up At 3am And Checking Slashdot... (Score:1)
I first read the title as 'camels transiting Venus.'
Guess what day it is? (Score:2)
Camelification (Score:1)
Doc: "The bad news is you have lumps in your neck. The good news is they carry water."
MikeMikeMikeMikeMike! (Score:1)
Hump Dayyyy!
Re: My First Thought... (Score:2)
Re: My First Thought... (Score:1)
You catch it when a camel gives you his unprotected meat. It's a toe infection.
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My first thought was "Camels are edible?"
(Admit it, most of you thought that too.)
Re:My First Thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
No. It was: 'What does camel taste like?'
I have to admit, goat is surprisingly good.
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I thought the same about kangaroo.
I have heard that to properly cook camel, you need to use a pressure cooker.
I just cooked some pork neck bones in a pressure cooker today, and they came out very tender and moist.
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I thought kangaroo was pretty good. Croc was definitely good, Emu was awful.
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Goat tastes pretty much like Lamb (maybe closer to mutton)
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Re:My First Thought... (Score:4, Informative)
Mutton is sheep meat, , from lambs that have grown up a bit. It has a bit more taste than lamb, and of course there is more meat to eat.
I used to eat mutton a lot. I was born in NZ.
There is also hogget, which is a lamb that is just over a year old. It tastes good too.
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Re:My First Thought... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but he tastes a bit stringy
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_and_mutton [wikipedia.org]
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It's certainly confusing to you, hence the total and utter bullshit you just posted.
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One, they don't fucking speak English there so they're hardly likely to use the word "mutton" at all. I'd rate their usage of English about the same as Del Trotter's French. What a load of bollocks.
Sell goat as mutton in England (you know, the place where they speak English) and you'll be dragged off to the slammer quicker than Shergar could run.
Two, quoting w
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No idea. Probably similar to goat...
Check this out though- camel biryani: http://shw.abakim.fotopages.com/14265650.html [fotopages.com]
Way over the RDA for camel, rice and pepsi? ;)
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I agree - goat is magnificent! Curried goat or jerk goat, especially from The Jerk Pit here in RVA [jerkpit.net] or from Rankin's Jerk Center on Grand Cayman [caymangoodtaste.com].
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On the grill, marinated, then mopped while cooking with lime juice and mint.
It's like the best lamb I've ever had.
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Re:My First Thought... (Score:5, Informative)
Camels aren't OK for Jews to eat, but they are for Muslims. Halal is a lot less restrictive than kosher, but rather arbitrary at times.
Re:My First Thought... (Score:5, Informative)
Not really less restrictive, just defined differently, and in ways that are sometimes open to interpretation. Kosher rules for whether animals are edible are defined by the shape of the hooves, so camels get lumped in with pigs. Halal depends on whether the animal is warm blooded and a strict herbivore, with the explicit exception of donkeys, and for some Muslims, horses. It's the same with seafood; kosher rules talk about fins and scales, while halal rules depend only on whether the animal is considered a fish or not (which varies among cultures).
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And for mammals, they have to chew a cud. Pigs don't, which is why they're not kosher even though they do have a cloven hoof. And for seafood, it's "scales and an upright tail" unless my memory is worse than usual.
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It seems to me, as an outsider, that Halal seems much less arbitrary there.
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I'd guess that comes from the fact that Halal came later, when hygiene was slightly better (though still quite primitively) understood.
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Closely related to pigs you say? Camel is sounding better and better.
Perhaps a camuledeerpig. Like a turducken, but then again duckhen is better then turducken. I bet Muledeerpig would be better, skipping the camel. Admit I'm guessing, never having had camel. It's on the list, right after porpoise and minke whale.
(Rasta Chef) How do we cook it? We smoke it! /(Rasta Chef)
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Sounds a lot like John Maddon's Turduckin. Would this be Cameepin?
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FWIW, the practical reason that pigs are neither kosher nor halal is trichinosis. Pigs are omnivores and get trichinosis from meat already infected with the worm. Camels are herbivores so are very unlikely to carry the trichinosis worm.
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even booze-swilling Arabs and Pakistanis of my acquaintance won't touch the stuff. They view it with about as much disgust as Americans have for cat meat.
Which makes them dumb [rightdiagnosis.com] if they're more afraid of this than any other food-related problem. And I hope they don't drive, that's much more likely to kill or maim them that a lifetime of pork consumption.
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I've known both kinds, even in the same family. The kids would tattle on dad for ordering pepperoni pizza.
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Back then they didn't know that. Even today some parts of the world cooking is not so straightforward.
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You're a braver man than me, my friend.
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Re: My First Thought... (Score:2)
The parasitic worm is Trichinella spiralis and is actually relatively easy to kill with cooking. Many pork dishes involve long slow cooking which renders them worms completely harmless. We eat feral pigs rural northern Florida without a problem. Granted, I pick preparations like slow cooker Cuban pork for any wild meat to be absolutely it's safe. As for exposure for the butcher, that's crap. The worm is embedded in a cyst that is dissolved by stomach acid so don't lick your hand while cleaning the anim
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Actually, my first thought was "In Saudi Arabia, they kill people or whip them almost to death for apostasy or blasphemy and yet they eat camel in spite of it being a mammal that does not have a cloven hoof and chews the cud and hence is explicitly banned in the OT (shared by all of the Abrahamic faiths) right alongside of the other "unclean" meats like pork and dog and horse". Way to go, guys! I guess those holy scriptures are "optional" when it doesn't involve stuff like killing people for being gay, f
Re:My First Thought... (Score:5, Funny)
I was on the third sentence in the summary before my brain caught up with what I read in the first sentence and I stopped picturing some kind of sneaker-net of racing camels, carrying infected USBs between nomads' camp-site computers.
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Who is to say that a GI didn't bring a dog to Saudi Arabia or Iraq, which bit a camel?
I would say that. Jumping across 3 species in such a short time. Additionally, you suggest that a virus went to humans via camels for some odd reason. Contact rates between dogs and humans is pretty high. I suppose there are some set of odds which make it just highly improbable, rather than impossible, but I'm going out on a limb. That didn't happen.
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Unfortunately, there's more:
After Lavabit, Silent Circle also shuts down email service. Silent Circle also shuttered its encrypted email service a few hours after Lavabit shut down citing an ongoing legal battle. They seem to be another victim of FISA "gag orders" that prohibit the service providers from discussing in public the orders for disclosure of customer data.
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The discussion [slashdot.org] still exists, but yeah, it's gone from the list of articles...WTF?
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Well, in case someone didn't believe it yet... we're living in very interesting times.
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It was a duplicate of an article posted only a few hours before. Here's the first one, which is still on the main page:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/08/08/1956215/encrypted-email-provider-lavabit-shuts-down-blames-us-govt [slashdot.org]
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It's not a duplicate.
It's a backup copy. Can't be too paranoid these days.
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Unfortunately, the Aussie's weren't stupid enough to fall into that acronym trap. It's ASIS - http://www.asis.gov.au/ [asis.gov.au]
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However it is clear they don't believe in the stupid voodoo of the polygraph invented by a comic writer and adopted by J. Edgar Hoover when he was happy to get kickbacks, so that makes t
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Oh come one, seriously? It doesn't matter whether this is a naturally occurring virus or something created by whatever government around the world wants to make people afraid of Muslims, this is just plain silly.
Plain silly you say? Well, how do you explain that Hendra virus [wikipedia.org] is passed to humans by... wait for it... descendents from arabian horses [wikipedia.org]!!!
Coincidence? I don't think so.
.
(large grin - waiting for the bites)
Re: Fear!!! Be afraid!! (Score:1)
I just thought it was interesting that they found something like this that goes from camel to human. I'd never heard of that before. I didn't detect any anti Muslim intent behind sharing that interesting information.
Re:Fear!!! Be afraid!! (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF are you talking about.
A. This has nothing to do with fear mongering against Muslims, in exactly the same way that reporting on SARS had nothing to do with fear mongering against China. I say this even though China and Saudi Arabia went about managing their outbreaks in exactly the same way: pretending it wasn't happening.
B. http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/ [cdc.gov]
Total Cases: 94
Deaths: 46
C. This isn't a flu virus, this is a deadlier cousin of SARS, which spread to ~3 dozen countries in a matter of weeks
This is the promotion of unrealistic fear, nothing more.
You sound like the boy who wouldn't cry wolf.
A novel respiratory virus that's killed 50% of known patients is extremely deserving of "the promotion of [del]unrealistic[/del] fear"
The sooner we can figure out where it originates, the sooner we can wipe out that animal reservoir and rely on human quarantines to prevent further spread.
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The first known patient in the new incident was a 60-year-old man from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who died from pneumonia in July
First patient died of pneumonia, virus was found in his blood after death
Ever since people in the Middle East started dying of a mysterious new infection last year
The first report was from September 2012, ie. 11 months ago.
The Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus has sickened 94 people so far and killed 46 of them
46 people dying globally over the course of 330 days from a virus which is only transmitted by physical contact. And who knows if the numbers are accurate? The first man died of pneumonia, is the virus just a formerly un-noticed strain that has a detrimental effect on the immune system causing pneumonia to flare up? Has the virus always existed in the people's
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The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
Albert Bartlett
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I'm sick of the insighting of ...
Refer to my sig, please. The word is 'inciting' [reference.com]. Plus, I think it should be [reference.com] "I'm sick of the incitement of ...".
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