Report: Scarlet Fever Spreads in N.Korea

[NVMojo]

(having a little bio-terra-ism in NK maybe?)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Scarlet fever has been spreading in North Korea and threatens to become a full-blown epidemic despite efforts by authorities to contain the disease, a news report said Wednesday.

The disease, which broke out in the North's northern Ryanggang Province last month, is rapidly spreading to other parts of the communist state, including the capital, Pyongyang, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said they didn't have information to confirm the media report.

Lack of medicine coupled with poor sanitary conditions are to blame for the rapid spread of the fever in the impoverished communist country, leading to the deaths among the aged and infants, Yonhap said.

Kwon Joon-wook, a South Korean CDC official, said scarlet fever "could be easily treated with antibiotics but it could become a problem" in a country like North Korea, which suffers from a lack of medicine.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2006/nov/15/111500029.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. :^( Treatable diseases should menace no one on this planet any more.

[nosillies]

2. You are absolutely right.

My son had scarlet fever a few months ago -- it was nothing. It was incredibly minor, and he didn't even really feel bad. To think that something that simple could kill because of a simple lack of medicine is stupefying.

[Demeter]

3. Scarlet Fever Is a Sign of Public Health Breakdown

In this country, people born 50 years ago could still have contracted scarlet fever, a complication of the commonplace staph infection, and died or suffered permanent damage. I had classmates with chronic health problems due to scarlet fever.

With years of malnutrion and a dissolving society, it is no wonder that NK is seeing an epidemic.

[Mendocino]

4. I had scarlet fever twice

when I was in grade school. One of the times it was severe. I was off from school for 3 weeks and the doctor made a house call because they didn't want me in his office. Fever of 104, rashes, my skin peeled in large patches, my finger and toe nails came off in thin layers, I even lost clumps of hair. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. JFK had it when he was young and almost died.

[SeattleGirl]

7. I had it too, when I was in grade school

Nasty, nasty stuff.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. My brother and I had it as toddlers.

I don't recall us really sick from it. It was mostly a problem because our father got into a severe car accident in another state, and our mother had to leave us behind for a couple of weeks, causing severe emotional scarring.

I think it was treated fairly easily with antibiotics.

[Itchinjim]

5. My mother's 2 year old sister died in an epidemic of Scarlet Fever in 1934.

My older sister had it as a 2 year old in 1959. Antibiotics and 25 short years made all the difference.

[azurnoir]

6. Scarlett fever is way more common in the US

then you would think. It is the second stage of a strepA infection, this is the same bacteria that is known as "flesh eating" bacteria and common strep throat, it can be deadly because it is opportunistic and it lives by eating blood cells. It occurs when a strep infection such as strep throat goes untreated or is under treated.

[krispos42]

8. "despite efforts by authorities to contain the disease"

Considering this is North Korea, that sounds pretty ominous.

[azurnoir]

9. The availability of basic anti-biotics

in NK must be desperate. A shot in the heine of common bi-cillian is the standard treatment, you can actually buy the veterinary version the difference is labeling, of this med at farm supply stores in the US.

[krispos42]

11. It just sounds like they're rounding up infected people

and putting them in camps or something like that. Or perhaps 'for the good of the workers of the glorious nation of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea', they get a bullet in the back of the head and their body tossed on a bonfire.

[laureloak]

10. Scarlet fever is a rash from Strep. It's common. n/t

[wholetruth00]

12. I S. Korea wanted to do the right thing they would get the needed medicine to

N.Korea and thereby lay the framework for possibly getting the N.Koreans to negotiate in good faith with the west. Same can be said for China.