Black Death is back

[Ardesco]

No - because inoculation stopped years ago.

That is because we had virtually eradicated the disease in the UK. However large scale immigration from countries where it was not erradicated and did not have a innoculation programme means that invariably some people brought it across.

Add this to the fact that we are no longer innoculated against it and it starts to rear its ugly head again.

(And not this is not a rant against immigrants, it is just fact)

[Troll]

You missed a trick... what about HIV?

HIV is a bit passé...

A deadly strain of the superbug MRSA which can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia has emerged.
Research suggests it may be more prevalent among the gay community - the gay San Francisco district of Castro appears to have been hardest hit.

So far only two cases of the new form of the USA300 strain of the bug have been recorded in the UK.

It is not usually contracted in hospitals, but in the community - often by casual contact.

The new strain is resistant to treatment by many front-line antibiotics.

It causes large boils on the skin, and in severe cases can lead to fatal blood poisoning or necrotising pneumonia, which eats away at the lungs.

Researchers say the bug has so far been 13 times more prevalent in gay men in San Francisco than in other people.

In the Castro district - where more gay people live than anywhere else in the US - about one in 588 people are carrying the bug.

In the general San Francisco community the figure was around one in 3,800.

Researcher Dr Binh Diep, from San Francisco General Hospital Medical Centre, said: "These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities.

Dr Diep said the best way to avoid transmission was probably to wash thoroughly with soap and water, especially after sexual activities.

The study, reported in Annals of Internal Medicine, was based on a review of medical records from outpatient clinics and medical centres in San Francisco and Boston.

Professor Mark Enright, from Imperial College and St Mary's Hospital, London, Britain's leading authority on MRSA, said: "It's quite surprising that the figures are so high.


"The main reservoir for this infection is gay men, drug users, and those involved in contact sports, like wrestling. Having lots of sexual partners and making skin contact with a large number of different people helps the infection to spread

[Ardesco]

You missed a trick... what about HIV?

HIV is not the death sentance it once was if you have access to the latest medication (Something people in africa generally don't have where HIV is a major problem).

They can keep you alive for a good 30-40 years now while filling you full of drugs and the chances are we will have a cure in 40 years time. They have already identified a mutant gene that makes you immune to it, if they can work out how to mutate genes in the body safely in the next 40 years job done.