China SARS Victims Suffer Hormone Treatment Effects: Report

[Shiloh]

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=9422006


China SARS Victims Suffer Hormone Treatment Effects: Report
December 25, 2009

BEIJING (Reuters) - About 300 survivors of a deadly outbreak of SARS in China in 2003 are now suffering from serious after-effects, possibly due to aggressive hormone treatment to save their lives, the Beijing News said on Friday.

Severe Acute Respiratory Disease, or SARS, was an unknown disease when it first struck in late 2002. Initially covered up by the Chinese government, it spread rapidly from south China to other cities and countries in 2003, causing public panic.

The most common complaints of the survivors are hip problems due to bone thinning, depression, and fibrosis of the lungs that makes breathing difficult.

China's Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment, asking that a fax be sent.

The last human case of SARS was in June, 2003. Over 8,000 people came down with the disease, and 775 died.

The SARS experience has been credited with inspiring a more transparent health reporting system in China and prompting better emergency preparedness.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

[Shiloh]

Re: China SARS Victims Suffer Hormone Treatment Effects: Report

Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/9...2/6902480.html

They survived SARS, but live in agony
14:30, February 25, 2010

In the war on SARS seven years ago, Fang Bo was hailed a national hero. After winning his own battle against the deadly virus at a Beijing hospital, he was lauded by the media as a symbol of hope, and inundated with letters and flowers from the public.

Seven years on, the 58-year-old is all but a forgotten survivor, crippled by the very treatment that saved his life.

His hips are now lined with 30-cm scars from operations to replace his thigh bones after he developed osteonecrosis, a wasting condition and a side effect of the hormone therapy he received in 2003. The disorder also affects his shoulders and knees.

"All the bones in my body are becoming like plaster, fragile and breakable," said Fang, a retired Beijing cook, who can still walk but lives in constant agony. "This condition doesn't kill you quickly, it tortures you for the rest of your life."

More than 5,000 people were infected during the outbreak of SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - on the Chinese mainland, where the final death toll hit 349, according to a WHO report on Aug 15, 2003.

Fang, whose wife and sister-in-law died from the virus, spent 40 days receiving treatment in hospital. When he was discharged, he donated blood antiserum to help scientists create a cure and offered his body to medical science after his death.

"I am healthy again," he told Face to Face, a China Central Television talk show, days after leaving hospital. "I want to help people to fight against SARS like I was helped. I believe my life in the future will still be beautiful."

Just six months later, he was diagnosed with osteonecrosis. He had operations on his femurs in 2005 and 2006, and last year, surgeons removed pieces of bone as big as fingernails from his right shoulder.

"Every media organization reported that people would help me and wouldn't forget me, but where are they when I lay alone after surgery?" he cried as he leafed through newspaper cuttings carrying headlines about his amazing recovery and the doctors who helped save him.

Fang is one of about 300 SARS survivors in Beijing struggling with side effects after treatment in 2003, with small numbers also in other cities, according to Chen Weiheng, a doctor at the capital's Wangjing Hospital.

He explained more than half of all China's SARS victims were treated with hormone therapy in Beijing. Many have since developed osteonecrosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis - a scarring of lung tissue - and depression.

"The after-effects can't be cured, so they have to face a lifetime of treatment."

Source: China Daily