| 9mm_fan |
01-19-2009 06:29 PM |
A friend of mine is a Navy doctor in Afghanistan. He volunteered because he gets to see diseases you only read about in the west such as plague. And a few that haven't reached the western medical knowledge yet. For instance medical thinking before now assumed that hemorrhagic fevers fester in tropical or sub tropical or even temperate climes alone. They're starting to see new lines of hemorrhagic virii that thrive in the arid cold climate of Afghanistan. Been there for centuries but now those wells are being tapped by the world's traffic through the region.
Plague outbreaks are not unheard of in North Africa. In fact there are 7 or 8 cases a year in the US, mostly in the south west. You also see Lassa fever, Hantavirus, Anthrax and Q fever in the wild in the US. Lassa fever can have a mortality rate in excess of 80% in certain populations which is nearly at the upper end of the worst strains of ebola.
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