Details on the Virus Situation

Hi Everyone,

For those of you who are curious, here are some reasons why we decided to go ahead with the program this year:

I hope this helps:

• The virus has had the largest impact in Fuyang, in the northwest of Anhui, whereas Jingxian is in the southeast. Our villages specifically are Xiyang, Caicun and Quanfeng, but you'll have more luck Googling Jingxian or Xuancheng. Jason (our CC) has already contacted the principals and host families in the villages where we will be staying, and there have not been any reports of infection. Local authorities were also asked to notify us immediately if any new complications or concerns should arise.
• As Seth (last year's CC) reminded me in a response to the same email I sent to all of you, this is largely a children'svirus. So I am concerned about our safety as volunteers, I am far more concerned about the children that we would be teaching. Out of the 30 or so fatalities, all of them have been children, and most of those have been extremely young children (below the age of 5 or 6). 
  
• My mother has also been talking to infectious disease people at a hospital in Shanghai, and after a long lecture about filtering my water, she essentially told me that transmission can easily be prevented through good hygiene.
  
• The virus (EV-71) does not have a vaccine, but that definitely doesn't mean that its symptoms (hand foot and mouth disease) cannot be treated. EV-71 is hardly a novel development, and hand foot and mouth disease is usually affects children in mild forms. Fatalities result from restricted access to treatment, a problem which I hope we would not encounter.

Barring any of our volunteers' issues with immunodeficiencies, I believe that we are not in any significant jeopardy as conscientious adults who are educated on the matter and aware that we should take certain precautions to lessen our chances of infection.

I hope that makes everyone feel better. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Elaine