quote:One person died and several others were taken to hospital after a mystery illness hit passengers on a Canadian long-distance train, local media said on Friday.
quote:The train was in quarantine in the small northern Ontario community of Foleyet, and nobody except emergency personnel were being allowed aboard.
Did anyone else read about this and get X-Files vibes? (Not to make light of people ill and dying; it just kinda made me shudder, then think of the X-Files. Or maybe Agatha Christie, if she wrote nowadays.)
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Yikes! Thanks for posting this, KQ.
After reading the story you linked to, I found a slightly more indepth article about it on CNN.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Thanks for the link. Though the CNN article is a bit confusing-- it still says they don't know what the illness is caused by, but then goes on for several paragraphs about noroviruses?
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
Yeah, that norovirus out of the blue was kind of weird. I suspect what happened is some reporter heard that the passengers had "flu-like symptoms" which means fever, body aches, respiratory symptoms, and translated that to "stomach flu", which doesn't exist and decided to flesh out the story with the cr*p about norovirus.
Influenza is a potentially serious respiratory illness caused by a specific family of viruses. We have seasonal vaccines for it. ~40,000 people die of it every year in the US.
Vomiting & diarrhea != the flu.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
It's the beginning of the zombie invasion! Get your shotguns!
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Shotguns? Forget that, I'm sharpening up my swords.
Edit to add: I think the norovirus thing was because norovirus is a highly communicable disease that spreads quickly and has flu like symptoms. It's something they are on the lookout for because I think there's a high probability of something like it being the culprit.
Still, the way they slipped it into the story was rather abrupt.
[ May 09, 2008, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
No no no no no no. Norovirus causes gastrointestinal illness. NOT flu-like illness.
Yes, Noro is nasty and spreads like wildfire, but it does not cause flu.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Upon re-reading, I think the reporter heard that local hospitals are on the lookout for norovirus outbreaks, and mistakenly assumed that was somehow related to the train incident.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I've had flu.
I've had norovirus.
I'll take the flu, please. Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
CNN is now reporting that infectious disease has been ruled out in the death and at least one of the cases. The quarantine will soon be lifted (if it hasn't been already) and the rest of the passengers will be allowed to continue their trip.
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