* Urgent Health Advisory *
>
>From: Dr. Small J, Pox
> Chief Epidemiologist, Centers for Diarrhea Control
> Atlanta, GA, USA
>
>To: All National Health Administrators
>
>Subj: Irswine Syndrome / Irswine Virus
>
>This advisory has been issued in light of recent and increasing
>incidence of the syndrome and spread of the virus.
>
>You are advised to use all possible caution when dealing with this
>disease as the potential to develop into a global pandemic is very
>real without early and prompt action.
>
>The Irswine virus can live only in humans ? not in animals or insects.
>Irswine is spread from person to person, generally through close
>contact with an infected person. Generally, someone has to be within
>six feet of, or have received electronic communications from an
>infected person to catch the disease. People who have Irswine can not
>pass the disease on to others until they began to show symptoms,
>themselves.
>
>Symptoms / Transmission:
>
>Irswine is transmitted from an infected person once a rash appears.
>Transmission does not occur during the prodromal period that precedes
>the rash. Infection is transmitted by large volume newsgroup and
>Internet chat room postings and only rarely has airborne transmission
>been documented. Epidemiologic studies have shown that Irswine has a
>lower rate of transmission than diseases such as measles, pertussis,
>and influenza. The greatest risk of infection occurs among household
>members and close contacts of persons with Irswine, especially those
>with prolonged face-to-face exposure. Extended close contact leaves
>one feeling queasy, soreness and tenderness around the rectal area,
>and an overwhelming compulsion to check that you still have your
>wallet. Isolation of contacts of cases at greatest risk of infection
>has been shown to interrupt transmission of Irswine. However, poor
>infection control practices resulted in high rates of transmission in
>Internet newsgroups and chat rooms.
>
>Additional symptoms include paranoia with regard to rocketry
>organizations and motor certification authorities. The paranoid
>fantasies manifest themselves as a persecution complex surrounding the
>hosts motor certification and membership in national rocketry
>organizations, in particular Tripoli Rocketry Association and one
>Bruce Kelly other delusions have been reported surrounding National
>Association of Rocketry and its president Mark "Bunny" Bundick. The
>host and the infected victims of the disease appear to retain all
>cognitive skills. But when the above topics are encountered can
>quickly and without warning suffer from fits of uncontrollable
>irrational rage. These fits if left untreated commonly result in
>massive volumes of Internet messages, postings and other
>communications in an attempt to further distribute the disease.
>
>If the disease is left untreated victims will quickly become further
>deluded, and loose all grip on reality, quickly making claims to
>having invented common technologies, and taking on sociopathic
>tendancies. The final stage of the disease leads victims to engage in
>get rich quick schemes, chain letters and other activities to obtains
>funds by any means? death by cranial implosion occurs soon after, due
>to the complete decay of all brain tissue.
>
>Control:
>
>The primary strategy to control an outbreak of Irswine and interrupt
>disease transmission is surveillance and containment, which includes
>isolation of persons at risk of contracting Irswine. This strategy
>involves identification of infected persons through intensive
>surveillance, isolation of infected persons.
>
>Depending upon the size of the Irswine outbreak and the resources that
>were available for rapid and thorough contact tracing, surveillance
>and containment activities in areas with identified Irswine cases was
>sometimes supplemented with voluntary euthanasia of other individuals.
> This was done in order to expand the ring of immune individuals
>within an outbreak area and to further reduce the chance of secondary
>transmission from Irswine patients before they could be identified and
>isolated. Regardless of the geographic distribution, number of cases,
>or number of concurrent outbreaks, surveillance, containment and
>euthanasia activities remained the primary disease control strategy. >
>
>Source/History of Disease:
>
>The only known global host of the disease is believed to live in
>Claremont, California, USA.
>
>With the advent of the Internet this has allowed the host to project
>infection rate beyond that of late 70's pyramid schemes.
>
>An initial attempt by the host to market rocket kits and motors, as an
>infection vector for the disease had limited success, but was quickly
>outlawed by national organizations in the interests of public safety. >
>This has been followed by other attempts at mass infection including
>t-shirt marketing campaigns and business franchising. The t-shirt
>campaign was particularly successful in infecting a series of victims
>across the Untied States.
>
>As 2001, there were attempts at bio-terrorism using this agent, in
>July 2001 at the Ramada Inn in Victorville, CA an attempt was made to
>infect a rocketry conference. Later the same week, organizers of a
>rocket launch, followed the centers advice and isolated the infection
>host and removed it from the site before secondary infections could >occur.
>
>Treatment and Rehabilitation:
>
>Suffers of the disease need to be removed from contact with the
>infection source, and extensive physiological counseling is required
>under no circumstances should a victim be permitted to access sources
>of electronic communications. Victims should be placed on a course of
>psychological rehabilitation programs as victims tend to have
>difficulty discriminating between the disease induced paranoia and >reality.
>
>Therapy may in most cases return the victims to reality, although
>there are document cases in Portland, Oregon and the Eastern United
>States where rehabilitation was unsuccessful. In these cases the
>victims have remained delusional and show all the characteristics of
>the disease but appear to be non-infectious. The victims are in the
>final stages of the disease, but it also appears that the exceptional
>thickness of their cranium has prevented the disease from taking its
>final and debilitating step.
>
>Reporting:
>
>All cases of this disease should be reported as soon as possible to
>your nearest region office of the Center for Diarrhea Control.