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Have not heard of this prior to this article. Anyone else?


Alaska Health Officials: First Deadly Case of Alaskapox Kills Elderly Man




Health officials say an elderly man who lived on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula is the first individual to die of a virus known as Alaskapox.

The case is also the first documented human infection outside Fairbanks, the Alaska Beacon reported Friday. Therefore, it appears the virus has reached further than the wildlife population in that area.

Images show one affect of the disease which appear to be small lesions on a person’s skin:

Alaska confirms first fatal case of Alaskapox https://t.co/kb7lC12cme pic.twitter.com/3hGSVwSs3w

— New York Post (@nypost) February 11, 2024

The Beacon article continued:

The patient, who had an immune system that was compromised because of treatment for cancer, first reported signs of the infection in September when a tender lesion appeared in his armpit area, according to a bulletin issued by the state Division of Public Health’s epidemiology section. The infection worsened, and after six weeks of emergency-care visits, he was hospitalized locally. As the situation deteriorated and his arm movement became impaired, he was transferred to an Anchorage hospital. There, numerous tests were needed to identify the infection, the bulletin said.

Although doctors treated the patient, he endured renal failure, respiratory failure, malnutrition, and a host of additional issues before he died in January.

According to the Alaska Department of Health’s web page on the Alaskapox virus, it was first identified in 2015.

“Since 2015, six additional cases of Alaskapox virus have been reported in Alaska, five of which were in persons living in the Fairbanks North Star Borough and one person was living in the Kenai Peninsula Borough,” the site continued:

Current evidence indicates that Alaskapox virus primarily occurs in small mammals. The virus has been most commonly identified in red-backed voles and shrews, based on small mammal sampling in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. However, it is likely that the virus is more widespread in Alaska’s small mammal populations, and infections in humans may have occurred in other patients but were not diagnosed. Domestic pets (cats and dogs) may also play a role in spreading the virus.

The official’s bulletin noted the man lived in a forested area where he had cared for a stray cat that hunted smaller animals. The cat frequently scratched him.

“This is the first case of severe Alaskapox infection resulting in hospitalization and death. The patient’s immunocompromised status likely contributed to illness severity,” the bulletin read.


https://www.breitbart.com/health/20...dly-case-of-alaskapox-kills-elderly-man/

In other words he had the pox when he died of other causes.

Cat scratch fever

No, but it set him up for the infection reaction. Probably became septic.

Still its about the same. If you are compromised then just any old thing can get you at some point.

It certainly doesn't seem like its the risk of Ebola when that was around down south.

I think I"m about raw from all the overblown issues of "covid" BS still.

Five or six years ago, after handling caribou meat upon a successful hunt, I woke up in the morning with a very strange looking and behaving pustule on my finger and a red streak on the inside of my thigh along with a hardness there that felt like a pencil inside my leg. When I finally ended up in the emergency room of the hospital after a few days of poor response to lousy initial treatment, the emergency room doctor took one look at the wound and told me, "We've been waiting for you." They sent a culture of the wound to the CDC in Atlanta, thinking it might be an anthrax poisoning. Apparently, the year before, the melting permafrost had exposed anthrax spores long frozen in the Siberian tundra and grazing reindeer got infected. Nearly 3000 animals died. There had also been an anthrax discovery in the Canadian Arctic. More, she went on to tell me about two different archeological digs on the Alaskan Arctic coast in which diggers got sick. One died. AFAIK, the story went dark. In my case, they gave me a series of heavy antibiotic shots in the ass. I also got released with a prescription. When filling it, the pharmacist saw my hand and asked to examine it. She called over another. She told me to go home and look up necrotizing fasciitis..........an aggressive flesh eating bacteria. 100% fatal without treatment, and the loss of tissue is guaranteed if treatment isn't started soon. I never heard back from the hospital about the culture, and assumed it was the necrotizing fasciitis, since it behaved as that bacteria is described.

Alaska has creative ways to kill you. Gotta' stay on your toes.

That sounds like what happens on the gulf coast all the time. Flesh eating bacteria in the salt water when it rains so much the salinity goes way down. If you have any way it can get in it will. Open sores, cuts etc... it will kill you and sometimes there is no way to stop it..

Yup. If you wait too long to start treatment or have trouble with the 'cillins, it will literally eat you alive. Amputations are common. Pretty gruesome stuff.

Beaver fever, bear hand, Giardia, Frostbite, anthrax, Alaskapox, flesh eating bacteria... sheesh! Glad I'm still a greenhorn. You sourdough guys scare the hell out of me. :>)

lol

Oh, there's more!

Wolves, bears, mad moose, wounded moose, Orcas, cold water, fast water, deep water, no water, falling trees, black ice, thin ice, blizzards, white-outs, land slides, snow slides, hypothermia, getting lost, sinking boats, doors coming off planes (etc.planes), fire, Anchorage after midnight, Kenai Pen in fishing season, slow drivers, fast drivers, half-fast drivers, and dumazzes in general.

I might have missed a few.

Be safe out there! Or at least paranoid.

Now, if you really want to scare yourself, read (I think) "Deep Survival. Who Lives. Who Dies. And Why". Good read.

I'm about half-way through on my wife's iPad download. Looks real familiar!

Written by the son of the WWII pilot who fell 27,000 feet, trapped in the cockpit of his wing-shot-off bomber, had a German farmer drop the hammer on a gun pointed at his head (misfire!) while trapped in the cockpit, and then survived POW camp, very badly injured.

Can be summed up with "Chit Happens". Some live and some die, for cause. Or not. Some do everything right and die. Some don't, and live anyway. It's about stacking the odds either way, with no guarantee, tho, even for the "experienced". "Luck" favors those who are prepared, pay attention, and their immediate world/self view is closely aligned with the in-the-moment World Reality. Mostly we are not, but get away with it anyway, or at least with minor consequences, until we don't.

Read it.

This?

https://www.abebooks.com/9780393052...msclkid=8d601e92918a1268049e7b4066db9cae

That. He does a far better job in dissecting some of my trite sayings.

For example, he breaks being lost down into 5 parts - mine is 3, but include all more detailed 5 of his:

lost = not knowing where you are, but knowing how to get out of there. This is "A valuable piece of information!" Ron White.

Lost = lost, plus one or 2 tries to correct the situation by getting to " here I am" or "lost" . Stop, at most, at 2!!! I have been within one minute of being :

LOST = usually staying put and making preparations to survive until someone finds one. That doesn't mean giving up, just adapting to the situation and making the best of it that one can with the resources at hand. The transition from "Lost" to and including LOST, Is where people make good or bad decisions, and where not controlling your panic will kill you. You WILL have panic, so "Don't panic" advice is not much good. At least the first couple times.... . "The better part of valor is knowing when to quit" to do something else constructively, is another thing I keep in mind.

He parses something I read years ago : " you go along and go along, and everything is fine until suddenly the last several (not just the last) decisions gang up on you and you are in the doo-doo." Loosely translated. (Chaos Theory.)

This is exactly how most gun "accidents" happen.