So far, the recent virus outbreak in China has killed 26 children. Known as hand, foot and mouth disease, it apparently shows up in China every year in late spring. This time, however, there’s a mysterious link to the EV-71 virus “which can cause a severe form of the disease that can lead to high fever, paralysis and viral meningitis.”
When these children started dying in Anhui Provence in Eastern China, doctors didn’t know what was going on. You’d think that the doctors would naturally report something mysterious right away, to stave off an epidemic or something. But, apparently, making the right call is more difficult than it seems in China.
But the Anhui doctor had to make a tough call in late March when she reported the mysterious deaths of children with pneumonia symptoms to local health authorities.
She could have been blamed for barking up the wrong tree and hurting the image of Fuyang No 1 Hospital, one of the best in the city. But she felt she had no choice.
This was part of the problem with the SARS outbreak in 2003. Doctors failed to report cases immediately and subsequently the country was late on solving the problem.
Hand, foot and mouth disease is sort of like China’s flu. Just like the flu in America, it hits every hear. This year has seen an unusual amount of cases, nearly 16,000 so far, according to the China Daily.
In other news… a bus exploded in Shanghai Monday. If you read the China Daily, other state media reports and even the Wall Street Journal it would seem as if the bus just randomly exploded. 
“Police blamed a passenger carrying unspecified ‘flammable materials,’” reported the China Daily. Okay, whatever that means. I learned later from one of my professors (a Party official) that it was, indeed a bombing. I never would have known for sure if I didn’t talk to him.
The website Zonaeuropa had some suggestions that it could have been a bomb but there are no real, solid sources. It also quotes a website speculating over some interesting accusations: (translated)
Even more frightening to the citizens than [t]he casualties at the scene is the vague reporting by the media. The description covered ’self-ignition,’ ‘ignited explosion (that is, a fire caused by an explosion in the engine),’ ‘arson’ and ‘explosion’ and this is enough to make one question whether the truth is being concealed. Even more terrifying than the bus being set on fire in an attack is that the Shanghai public security bureau said casually that this was caused by flammable materials brought on by a bus [passenger]. Even more scary to the outside world is that the authorities could cover up the fact that the train in the Shandong collusion was the Olympic Games special promotion train. If they can seal off the truth about the Shanghai bus and they can seal off the situation about epidemics, what couldn’t they not deceive the Chinese people and the rest of the world on?
Oh, China.
