Don ’ t panic. Prepare

Dr.Tracey McNamara on West Nile Fever and COVID-19   As interviewed by Edward Borton, GIDEON What was the experience of discovering a new virus outbreak on your doorstep? When New York City announced that people were dying of unusual encephalitis, I was struck by the timing and proximity between this event and an outbreak of crow deaths. Upon ruling out all known viruses that cause inflammation of the brain in birds, in the United States: exotic Newcastle, avian influenza, and Eastern Equine encephalitis (EEE), I knew this was something new. It wasn’t until I picked up the phone and called the U.S. Army and said “I think it’s something new to veterinary medicine. I think it’s the same thing killing people in New York City, but no one will test my samples.” That one phone call changed everything because the military had a different mindset. When you say ‘something unusual, new and killing people’, they immediately thought of bioterrorism, and the West Nile virus is indeed a biowarfare weapon.   Was there a significant media response at the time? How does the response compare with what we’re experiencing today? It was pretty crazy. We faced the same situation: a disease that we had never seen in the Western Hemisphere, and knew nothing about. We didn’t know what it was going to do, who it was going to make sick, only that it had already killed people. The scientists had nothing but questions about this virus and the publi...
Source: GIDEON blog - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Epidemiology Events Outbreaks Tips Source Type: blogs