MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Update: Man Dies …

“(CNN) — A 39-year-old man in a southern Chinese hospital is suffering from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu, state media reported Friday.

The man — identified by Xinhua as a bus driver with the surname Chen — was hospitalized in Shenzhen on December 21 as he battled a fever. He tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, a provincial health department said Friday, according to the official news agency.

Chen was in critical condition Friday at the hospital, the health department said.

The man had not traveled out of the city of Shenzhen, nor did he have direct contact with poultry in the month before he came down with the fever, according to the department.

Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, where more than 17,000 chickens were ordered culled on the same day that Chen was hospitalized. That decision came after a chicken carcass tested positive for avian flu.

The territory’s director of Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation declared the Cheung Sha Wan Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market an infected place, the government said then in a statement.

Farmers were told they could not send chickens to the market for 21 days.

The Hong Kong government said it was working to trace the origin of the chicken, which was infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. But, as of December 21, authorities did not know the source.” Read more.

World Health Organization “deeply concerned” by mutated H5N1 bird flu research – “LONDON (Reuters) – The World Health Organization issued a stern warning on Friday to scientists who have engineered a highly pathogenic form of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, saying their work carries significant risks and must be tightly controlled. The United Nations health body said it was ‘deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences’ of work by two leading flu research teams who this month said they had found ways to make H5N1 into a easily transmissable form capable of causing lethal human pandemics. The work by the teams, one in The Netherlands and one in the United States, has already prompted an unprecedented censorship call from U.S. security advisers who fear that publishing details of the research could give potential attackers the know-how to make a bioterror weapon.” Read more.

“Victoria is in the grip of a whooping cough epidemic.

Doctors have reported an alarming surge in the number of people being infected.

Figures from the Victorian Department of Health show the number of Victorian’s diagnosed with whooping cough is steadily on the rise.

In 2008, 1375 people contracted the condition.

In 2009, nearly 4000 were diagnosed.

So far this year almost 8000 have been infected.

The figures also show the young are the most vulnerable, with babies making up 45.2 per cent of all hospitalisation.

‘When you have whooping cough in that many number of people, babies are very vulnerable to catching the infection,’ said one Victorian doctor.” Source – Sky News.

‘Whooping cough vaccine wears off’ – “A WHOOPING cough outbreak on the North Coast has led to a renewed call for vaccinations from health authorities. The director of public health for the northern NSW and Mid North Coast local health districts, Paul Corben, said a 50% rise in reported cases between Tweed Heads and Port Macquarie this year has concerned health workers. ‘We do sometimes see periodic surges on the number of cases as the protection you get from either having the vaccination or the disease wears off over time,’ he said.” Read more.

Whooping Cough Outbreak Spreads On Long Island; More Than 200 Cases Reported – “An alarming rise in a potentially fatal bacterial infection known as whooping cough has prompted a warning from the Suffolk County Health Department. It’s a tell-tale sign winter is coming — children and their colds. But what’s going around this year is a potentially fatal bacterial cough known as pertussis or whooping cough, reports CBS 2’s Emily Smith. It’s a chronic cough, almost a barking sound, that can last more than three months, and it is spread easily through droplets… ‘That’s kind of scary. I wonder what’s going on, why this outbreak started. What’s going on?’ one resident asked.” Read more.

Montana: Whooping cough outbreak emphasizes need for vaccinations – “While there are no confirmed cases of whooping cough in Pondera County, an outbreak of pertussis in Gallatin County has health officials encouraging Montanans to be up-to-date with vaccinations. There are 127 confirmed cases, year-to-date, reported in Montana with Gallatin having 41. The last 24 cases there came in the last two weeks and is a public health threat that could spread beyond Gallatin. Cynthia Grubb, RN, CLC of the Pondera County Health Department (PCHD) tells the I-O, ‘We have a DTaP vaccine for pertussis which is the one people need to take. DTaP covers three diseases in one shot, diphtheria and pertussis. ‘All children cover two months of age, parent, family members and caregivers of infants, should be vaccinated against pertussis,’ she says.” Read more.

By Roger Caldwell – “A new type of flu virus has afflicted three children in Iowa. This virus has been linked to pigs in the past, but these new cases appaear to have been spread from person to person.

Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, medical director for the Iowa Department of Public Health, said that the children did not become seriously ill. The children live in rural Webster and Hamilton counties. There is concern about a potentially greater outbreak of the flu because the swine origin A/H3N2 virus was detected in patients who hadn’t had contact with animals.

Quinlisk said, ‘We have pretty good evidence of person-to-person spread…None of the children or anyone around them had exposure to swine, turkeys or other sources.’

The new H3N2 virus appears to have acquired a gene that might make it more transmissible from H1N1, the flu that sparked 2009′s so-called swine flu pandemic. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had previously detected seven cases of this strain of the flu in humans. Genetic parts are often swapped by flu viruses. Officials suspect that the new virus was created when a pig became infected with the H1N1 virus and the H3N2 virus at the same time.

The new virus combines elements of avian, human, H1N1 and swine flu viruses together into what scientists call a recombinant virus.” Read more.

Radioactive crops, contaminated sea food, ‘mad cow’ disease, what’s next? …

“Japan has confirmed its eighth case of mad cow disease, and there is concern it could be a new strain of the disease.

The mad cow disease – or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)- was found in a cow that was just 23 months old.

That makes it the youngest animal in the world to be confirmed as having BSE.

Japan’s health ministry says it represents a new, unusual strain of the disease.

There is concern the new strain might not always be picked up by Japan’s screening procedures, and the authorities are desperately trying to work out how it got into the food chain.

Japan is a major market for Australian beef, and at this stage it is not clear how the country’s eighth case of BSE will affect Australian exports.” Source – Yahoo! 7 News.

“A four-fold increase in polio has been reported in Nigeria, with the disease spreading to other countries, a World Health Organisation official says.

Forty-three cases were reported in Nigeria this year, compared to 11 last year, the official, Thomas Moran, said.

Curbing the polio virus in Nigeria is key to eradicating the crippling disease in Africa, he said.

In 2003, northern Nigeria’s Muslim leaders leaders opposed vaccinations, claiming they could cause infertility.

Nigeria is one of four countries in the world – along with Pakistan, India and Afghanistan – where polio is still a major health risk.

Mr Moran told the BBC the disease had also spread to neighbouring Niger, Mali and Ivory Coast.

‘The success of polio eradication in Africa rests on Nigeria interrupting the virus,’ he said.

Polio was affecting eight northern Nigerian states – two more than a few months ago, the head of Nigeria’s National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA), Dr Ado Muhammad, told the BBC.” Read more.

Some Muslim groups would rather see death than accept the possibility that non-Muslim ‘infidels’ — “the most vile of created beings” (Qur’an 98:6) — could ever want to do anything but simply help those in need.  Here is another example of a ‘western conspiracy’ propagated by the ‘enlightened’:

Somali Islamists say famine is a lie created by the west to spread Christianity – “For Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked rebels, the drought devastating parts of the country is being exploited by external enemies… Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage denied there was famine in the southern Somalia regions of Bakool and Lower Shabelle as declared by the UN, but admitted that there was drought. In a speech to the rebel radio, Rage said local traders and other residents have been the main providers of help to the drought-hit population and that ‘God did not make them need an outside enemy or non-Muslims … We need Muslim people to be aware that the external enemy especially non-Muslims have been thinking of a new strategy. The new strategy is to transport them abroad, especially in Christian countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, so that their faith can be destroyed and that they could be staff and soldiers for the Christians,’ Rage charged.” Read more.

By JEREMY LAURANCE – “The world is being driven towards the ‘unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections’, experts are warning, because of the growth of superbugs resistant to all antibiotics and the dwindling interest in developing new drugs to combat them.

Reports are increasing across Europe of patients with infections that are nearly impossible to treat. The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said yesterday that in some countries up to 50 per cent of cases of blood poisoning caused by one bug – K. pneumoniae, a common cause of urinary and respiratory conditions – were resistant to carbapenems, the most powerful class of antibiotics.

Across Europe, the percentage of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae has doubled from 7 per cent to 15 per cent. The ECDC said it is ‘particularly worrying’ because carbapenems are the last-line antibiotics for treatment of multi-drug-resistant infections.

Marc Sprenger, the director, said: ‘The situation is critical. We need to declare a war against these bacteria.'” Read more.