Thursday, February 27, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Ousted Ukraine leader reportedly in Russia as pro-Kremlin gunmen seize gov't buildings in Crimea
CBS/Wire Services February 27, 2014

MOSCOW -- Russia has agreed to ensure the personal safety of Ukraine's ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, Russian news agencies quoted an official source as saying on Thursday.

"In connection with the appeal by president Yanukovich for his personal security to be guaranteed, I report that the request has been granted on the territory of the Russian Federation," the source was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
The report appeared to confirm rumors that the Ukrainian leader had fled his own nation and reached Russian soil.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, meanwhile, quoted the statement allegedly from Yanukovich himself, in which he asked for Russia to protect him from the "extremists" who forced him to flee his post and the Ukrainian capital of Kiev over the weekend.
A respected Russian news organization reported that the fugitive Ukrainian president had been seen in a Moscow hotel and was now staying in a Kremlin sanatorium just outside the city.

The RBK report was impossible to confirm, but security at the Ukraina Hotel was unusually heavy late Wednesday, with police watching from parked vehicles outside and guards posted throughout the lobby. Some of Yanukovich's allies were also reported to have been at the hotel.

A poster with a photo of fugitive Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled the capital Kiev and went into hiding after months of protests against his government, is seen fixed onto a barricade in central Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 27, 2014.

Yanukovich has not been seen publicly since Saturday, when he was spotted in the eastern Ukrainian region of Crimea, bordering Russia, where he still enjoys significant support. While the West has recognized the new Ukrainian government, whose forces drove Yanukovich from power, Russia still considers him the legitimate president.

In the statement he reportedly made on Thursday he asserted the same, that he remained the rightful leader of the Ukraine.

RBK reported Wednesday evening that Yanukovich was staying at the Barvikha sanatorium, which is run by the presidential administration's property department. The spokesman for this department, Viktor Khrekov, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has no information about this.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman also said he had no information about Yanukovich's reported arrival in Moscow.

The news about Yanukovich came as Ukraine put its police on high alert after dozens of armed pro-Russia men stormed and seized local government buildings in the eastern Crimea region and raised a Russian flag over a barricade.

The renewed tension in this strategic peninsula that houses Russia's Black Sea fleet came as lawmakers in Kiev were expected to approve the new government, but also a day after clashes between pro- and anti-Russian demonstrators in Crimea's regional capital, Simferopol.

The men occupying the local parliament building did not immediately voice any demands but threw a flash grenade in response to a journalist's questions. They wore black and orange ribbons, a Russian symbol of the victory in World War II, and put up a sign saying "Crimea is Russia."

Ukraine's acting president appealed for calm after the buildings were seized, by what he called "criminals in military fatigues."

Fistfights broke out Wednesday outside the legislature's building in Simferopol between pro- and anti-Russian demonstrators.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, put combat troops on high alert Wednesday for war games near the Ukrainian boarder -- the Kremlin's boldest gesture after days of sabre rattling since its ally Yanukovich was toppled.

Moscow said about 150,000 troops would take part in exercises in the Western military district that borders Ukraine.

Moscow denounced what it described as the rise of "nationalist and neo-fascist sentiment" in Ukraine's mainly Ukrainian-speaking west, where it said Russian speakers were being deprived of rights.

On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said fighter jets along the country's border with Ukraine had been put on combat alert, according to the Interfax news agency.

"Constant air patrols are being carried out by fighter jets in the border regions," Interfax quoted a ministry statement as saying. "From the moment they received the signal to be on high alert, the air force in the western military region left for the ... air bases."

Secretary of State John Kerry said late Wednesday it would be a grave mistake for Russia to send troops into neighboring Ukraine.

In Kiev, opposition leaders who took charge after Yanukovich fled were working on forming a new government to chart a path forward for the country and its ailing economy. The parliament approved Arseniy Yatsenyuk Thursday as the nation's new prime minister.

Opposition leaders chose Independence Square -- the center of the revolution -- to introduce the country's new government Wednesday. The introductions prompted booing from some opposition supporters in the square.

Parliament must ratify the new ministers Thursday, but CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward reported that for some in the crowd, there were too many familiar faces from the Yanukovich days on stage.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concern for the safety of Russian citizens in Ukraine, using language similar to statements that preceded its invasion of Georgia in 2008.

Since Yanukovich's downfall on Saturday, all eyes have been on Putin, who ordered the invasion of Georgia to protect two self-declared independent regions with many ethnic Russians and others holding Russian passports. Moscow recognized the regions as independent states, using armed force effectively to seize control of territory from its neighbor.

Any military action in Ukraine, a country of 46 million people that has close ties with European powers and the United States, would be far more serious -- the closest the West and Russia have come to outright confrontation since the Cold War.


Arseniy Yatsenyuk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk (Ukrainian: Арсеній Петрович Яценюк, Arseniy Yatseniuk; born May 22, 1974) is a Ukrainian politician, economist and lawyer and current Prime Minister of Ukraine. [2] Yatsenyuk served in the government of Ukraine as Minister of Economy from 2005 to 2006; subsequently he was Foreign Minister of Ukraine in 2007 and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) from 2007 to 2008. Currently he is one of the leaders of Ukraine's second biggest party[3] All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" and leader of the parliamentary faction of "Fatherland".[4][5][6]

Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk was born on May 22, 1974 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). He was born to in a family of professors of the Chernivtsi University. His father, historian Peter Ivanovich Yatsenuk, has been a professor at the Faculty of History at Chernivtsi National University. His mother Maria Grigoriievna Yatsenyuk (nee Buckeye) has been a teacher at the French Department of Foreign Languages ​​at Chernivtsi National University.[7] After Yatsenyuk began studying at the Chernivtsi University in 1992, Yatsenyuk set up a student law firm.[8] He graduated from the university in 1996, and later attended the Chernivtsi Trade-Economics Institute of the "Kyiv National Trade-Economics Institute" in 2001.[9]
From December 1992 to September 1997 he was the president of "Yurek Ltd." law firm, based in Chernivtsi.[9] From January 1998 until September 2001, Yatsenyuk worked in the Aval bank, based in Kiev.[9]

Arseniy Yatsenyuk was proposed for the post of Foreign Minister by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. Yatsenyuk was chosen for the post by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on March 21, 2007[12] with 426 votes (from 450 maximum),[13] but only after the Ukrainian parliament twice denied the post to Volodymyr Ohryzko.

Yatseniuk does not want Russian to become the second state language in Ukraine.[66]
Yatseniuk wants European Union membership for Ukraine.[67] and he sees this "because this means standards and values – a [high] level of education, medical treatment, pensions, employment, freedoms, new technologies, and progress".[67] Yatseniuk stated late 2009 that in its relations with the European Union, Ukraine should have a visa-free regime with EU countries.[68] Yatseniuk stated on 20 April 2012 it was clear to him that the European Union will not sign the association agreement "until fully fledged democracy is resumed in Ukraine, free and fair elections are held, and the political persecution of opponents is stopped in Ukraine".[69] Yatseniuk is against Ukraine joining the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia; according to him "Ukraine's joining the Customs Union means the restoration of the Soviet Union in a slightly different form and with a different name. But this means that the country will become a part of the Russian empire. We know history. We have been there and we don't want to return there".[67] On 21 August 2013 Yatseniuk stated "Russia has decided for some reason that it can be the architect of a new Berlin wall. And, according to Russia’s design, this wall should appear at the border between Ukraine and the European Union".[70]




Russia is amassing troops on the border of Ukraine, though “it denied that the previously unannounced war games were linked to the Ukrainian crisis.” Meanwhile Kerry is warning Putin against invading Ukraine. I wonder if Obama should be proposing reducing the size of our military at this time. Usually this kind of thing is just posturing, of course. I doubt if Putin would actually start a war. I will keep my eye out for developments.





Washington is content to do nothing in 2014 – CBS
By John Dickerson CBS News February 27, 2014

Washington is coasting. For the past several years, chroniclers of the relationship between the president and Republicans in Congress have searched in vain for new ways to describe chaos. When chaos wasn't on order, the task was to find new ways to connote stasis--the lack of progress that filled the exhausted interregnum between periods of chaos.

Now the job has changed a bit. Crisis budgeting that led to tense moments is largely gone, mostly because House Republicans have decided not to stage confrontations. That is healthy, but there seems to have been a collective decision that like the convalescent, no politician is going to risk tearing the stitches by doing much more than padding around the ward. No one is going to do anything big or risky. The pace of action is neither chaotic nor energetic but just shy of slipping on a Snuggie and settling in for a Lord of the Rings marathon.

This is, of course, pathetic. Republicans and Democrats are both so frightened about creating fights within their own parties during an election year that they are leaving the big questions unanswered. Wednesday, House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp put forward a set of fundamental tax reform proposals. It was the product of years of work between Camp, a Republican, and his Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Max Baucus. The two traveled across the country holding hearings, taking in mountains of input, and engaging in all the other kinds of activity that most people like to think of when they think of elected representatives doing their jobs.

All that work is going nowhere. No one in either party wants to risk taking on the complicated and tricky issue that might offend big contributors or stir up voters in the wrong way. There will continue to be talk on both sides, but no one is going to get anything done. Budget expert Stan Collender thinks that means no action on this issue until 2019.

Trade and immigration are two other items that have gone from the back burner to the freezer. House Speaker John Boehner won't start a fight in his party by bringing up immigration reform, and President Obama won't force his party to take up trade legislation that the president says will help the economy.

The stakes are so low in Washington that Obama and Boehner could even sit down and meet again after a long pause. Tuesday, the two men talked for an hour in what was their longest noncrisis conversation in years. Boehner emerged calling it a "nice meeting" and then went back to beating up on the president and his health care law.
So if nothing is going to get done, what did they talk about? Well, just because no one in Washington is going to do anything big or meaningful doesn't mean they have totally banished their chance to do a little something.

There is a possibility that the appropriations process will actually take place in some form this year. Spending items may actually be considered by a committee in which people will have their say about the merits of each program. Although the big budget questions of our time--big new spending or entitlement reforms--are still out of the conversation, at least spending levels won't be determined by sequestration. There's also a slim chance that Congress might work together on the transportation bill, flood insurance, and a water resource bill in the way that members worked together to pass the farm bill.

Those are not grand pieces of legislation, but they are what one top congressional aide calls the "meat and potatoes" of operating a government. A cynic might also call them the least lawmakers can be expected to do and still deserve the name. Of course, even limited progress is the optimistic view. Though the temperature has lowered and chaos is on pause, it's still possible that lawmakers could slip from risk-free coasting to a full-on coma. Given how few legislative days are scheduled for this election year, it may be impossible even to handle the meat-and-potato basics. Congress may, for example, once again resort to passing a continuing resolution instead of having a proper appropriations process.

This week, Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress, announced that he is retiring. He's out of a job, but a sculptor just got a new one. The House will no doubt commission a monument to commemorate Dingell's more than 58-year career of legislative action. All the other sculptors can take off, though. Even if there are a few achievements this year, they won't be anything to chisel home about.




Maybe this time of quiet would be a good chance for the Democrats to work on the environment or immigration. I'm sure that would get things stirred up again. The photograph which accompanies this article shows Boehner and Obama relaxed and apparently joking about something, smiles on both their faces. That's good for a change.




N. Korea launches missiles amid U.S.-S. Korea exercises
CBS/Reuters February 27, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea fired four short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast on Thursday, a media official at South Korea's Defense Ministry said, while providing no information on the purpose of the firing.

North Korea fired the missiles at 5:42 p.m. (3:42 a.m. ET) from a mountain site just north of the border with South Korea, the official said.

Launches by the North of short-range missiles are not uncommon as part of military exercises.

The firing came days after the beginning of annual joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises which the North routinely denounces as preparation for war.
North Korea had requested earlier this month that South Korea cancel the exercises, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flatly rejected, CBS News' Samuel Songhoon Lee reports from Seoul.

The North was angered this month when a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 bomber made a sortie over South Korea, though the flight did not trigger a sharp escalation of military tension.

The South's Yonhap News Agency said the missiles fired on Thursday were believed to have a range of about 125 miles, which means they could not reach Japan.




More war games – I suppose there is an actual need to rehearse joint actions this way. It probably gives the two governments a chance to improve their plans and test their equipment. Also, of course, it gently reminds North Korea that the bond between us and South Korea is still firm. I notice there was no comment from the North, threatening or otherwise except the launching of the missles harmlessly into the ocean. Since we spend so much money coordinating joint military games, the Pentagon must think it is useful. So be it.




Drones could help areas devastated by drought – CBS
By Bigad Shaban CBS News February 26, 2014

Drones could soon help communities suffering from extreme drought. Meteorologist Jeff Tilley tells CBS News they could help produce billions of gallons of additional water each month through a process called cloud seeding. 

Tilley's current cloud seed generator shoots tiny silver iodide particles into storm clouds to help transform water vapor into snow or rain. The conversion takes about an hour.  

 Over the Sierra Nevada, he said, the cloud seed generator is more successful at higher altitudes. 

Eventually there's a limit to how high a land-based instrument can reach -- and that's where drones come in. Tilley's team at Nevada's Desert Research Institute is developing a first-of-its-kind unmanned drone for cloud seeding. 

Piloted planes have also been used in cloud seeding for more than 60 years. They can produce an additional 1 billion gallons of water for every 25 to 45 hours of flying, but have to stay above the clouds for safety reasons. 

Tilley says drones can fly through clouds and stay in the air longer, producing even more precipitation for communities devastated by drought. 

"You can think of it not only do I have more water to shower with, or water my plants with, or raise crops with, you're really helping the economy from having the breaks put on it because of the amount of water that's available."

The Desert Research Institute is still working on a cost analysis for using drones, but estimates that the price tag to operate them might only be half as much as standard planes, especially because the smaller drones require much less fuel.

He hopes his cloud seeding drone will begin soaking drought-stricken communities by the end of this year.




Tilley's cloud seeding drone is still in the developmental stages, but should be available by the end of this year. I hope they can do it faster. California is in dire straits now. Why aren't they using regular airplanes until the drone gets ready, even though it is more expensive? Cloud seeding was used to shrink the size of a hurricane some years back – when the rain fell the strength of the storm was diminished – so it is a process that works. Apparently the drone process creates more rain and is less expensive. It's good to see that this is lined up for the near future, because the need is very great.




N.J. mom: School bus left my 5-year-old at wrong stop ... again – CBS
CBS News February 26, 2014

A mother in northern New Jersey was furious after she says her daughter was dropped off at the wrong stop and then put on the wrong bus all in the same week, CBS New York station WCBS-TV reports.

Melissa Clayton's 5-year-old daughter, Mia Autrey, was left outside their apartment building with no one to pick her up when she was supposed to be taken to an after school program Thursday.

Clayton said she feared the worst.
"Panic, panic," she said. "I was scared to death."
Clayton said this wasn't the first time Mia was left outside their building instead of being taken to the after school program. She said the Trans Ed bus company made the same mistake with Mia on her first day of school in September.

"The bus driver did come back and say, 'I am sorry, I'm sorry; she was sleeping.' And I said, 'Well, that's when you're supposed to pay closer attention to make sure she got off at the right spot,'" Clayton said.

A neighbor spotted Mia and took her in from the cold.
Trans Ed told WCBS-TV that it is looking into the incident but wouldn't comment further.

Clayton said the school's superintendent said it wouldn't happen again.
"Thursday night, the principal called me and said, 'Oh I apologize for what happened with transportation. We're going to handle that,'" Clayton said.

So it was easy to imagine Clayton's shock when a teacher put Mia on the wrong bus Friday.

"They apologized, but, you know, it's kind of hard to accept their apology when it's your kid," Clayton said.

Clayton said she feels a little less stress now that the school district transferred Mia to the elementary school where her afterschool program is located.

WCBS-TV reached out to the school district for comment. Officials did not return any calls.





Kids used to be at least six when they went to school. Five seems like little more than a baby to me, and not ready to protect themselves or seek proper shelter. Thank goodness the neighbor took her into her own home until her mom came for her.

Her age aside, there are too frequently problems with school busing. It is the only way to keep a racially integrated school system and guarantee that kids have transportation; but it is a heavy responsibility on the bus driver to know at every stop which children should be getting off there, and if they don't come to the front of the bus, go back and find them. I remember one story when a mentally disabled child was left alone on the bus at the school yard until school authorities came out to look for him. He had been asleep, and the bus driver didn't go back and check on him.

Then there are the fights that break out on buses sometimes as bullies taunt or even hit a more timid or weaker student. The driver, to me, should immediately pull the bus over and stop, and then call 911 for police help. He or she is usually unable to stop the fight on his own. One such case that happened here in Jacksonville made the national news as the bus camera recorded a vicious assault on a boy by a group of bullies. Kids need to be safe not only in school, but in transit as well. Maybe the drivers could use another adult stationed on the bus to supervise the kids and back up the driver if a fight breaks out. That would cost extra money, but I think it would be worth it.




­
Deadly MERS Virus Circulates Among Arabian Camels – NPR
by Richard Knox
February 25, 2014
­
Scientists have gotten close to pinning down the origin of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a dangerous respiratory disease that emerged in Saudi Arabia 17 months ago.
It turns out the MERS virus has been circulating in Arabian camels for more than two decades, scientists report in a study published Tuesday.

Middle East Coronavirus Called 'Threat To The Entire World'
So far MERS has sickened more than 180 people, killing at least 77 of them — an alarming 43 percent. But scientists haven't been sure where the virus came from or how people catch it.

A report in the journal mBIO suggests the virus is ubiquitous among Saudi Arabian dromedary camels, the one-humped variety. The animals get the virus when they're young, and it often doesn't make them sick.

"We now know the answers to several questions," says the report's senior author, Ian Lipkin of Columbia University. "First, this virus infection is very common in camels. It probably occurs early in these camels. So this is a reservoir that is constantly replenishing itself. It can go directly from camels to humans, with no need for adaptation in another animal. And there's a lot of virus."

"This really confirms that this is a camel virus," says virologist Marion Koopmans of Erasmus University, who wasn't involved in the study.

Outbreak In Saudi Arabia Echoes SARS Epidemic 10 Years Ago
Koopmans and her team had previously found the MERS virus in camels as far afield as Africa and the Canary Islands. But the current study, she says, ends the discussion about whether camels get the virus from people. "It shows this virus is circulating in camels, period," Koopmans tells Shots.

At the same time, the new data leave other questions unanswered and even deepen some of the mystery around MERS.

The symptoms of MERS — often a life-threatening lung infection — can look similar to regular pnuemonias. So one question is whether people have been getting the virus for decades without anyone noticing or diagnosing it.

"What argues against that," Koopmans says, "is genetic sequence data from viruses picked up in people indicating that the virus emerged around mid-2012, not before that. That does not add up to infections having gone on for a long time, but that's still an open question."

The biggest puzzle, though, is how people who've had no contact with camels get the MERS virus.

"In our cases in Saudi, two-thirds have had no contact with camels," says Saudi Arabia's deputy health minister, Dr. Ziad Memish.

Middle East Virus Spreads Between Hospitalized Patients
It's known that people can get MERS from other humans. But this fails to account for most cases, which occur sporadically, with no obvious source of transmission.

One possibility, Lipkin says, is that people pick up the virus from contaminated surfaces, which scientists call fomites. A report published last fall shows that the MERS virus can persist for at least four days in the environment at wide ranges of temperature and humidity. This makes it similar to its far more easily transmitted cousin, the SARS virus, and very different from, say, flu viruses.

The virus' ability to persist in the environment may help explain a MERS outbreak last year among hospitals in the Saudi town of Al-Hofuf. But Memish thinks transmission is a bit more complex than can be explained by fomites.

"We have strong evidence from a cluster [of MERS infections] in a household with 23 people, only one or two of whom got infected," Memish says. "After 1.5 years and close to 200 cases, we know this virus is not very infectious."

The discovery of widespread MERS virus infection in camels does not rule out bats or other animals as intermediaries in the chain of transmission to humans — although the current study didn't find evidence of infection in goats or sheep.

It's known that bats harbor a similar virus, and last fall Lipkin's group caused a stir by publishing evidence that a virus extracted from an Egyptian tomb bat contained a short stretch of genes identical to MERS virus from humans. But that bat was one among thousands of samples with no evidence of the virus. And not everybody in the community is persuaded that single bat was infected with the same one that causes human disease.

"We need to find out if there is another intermediate host that can carry the virus more closely into the human population," says Lipkin, who has become famous for his ability to track down elusive new viruses. "We need to understand how people get exposed to this virus."

The answer, Lipkin thinks, lies in "gumshoe epidemiology" — the painstaking work of investigating what distinguishes people who have gotten MERS from counterparts who haven't.

In fact, after a lengthy delay that has generated much criticism, Arabian health officials are about to launch just such a project, called a case-control study. The World Health Organization has scheduled a meeting next week to finalize the study design, Memish says.

But Memish doesn't expect the study to answer crucial questions. "I don't think we're going to find anything new because what we've been doing for the last 1.5 years is an in-depth investigation of every case and their contacts," he tells Shots.

Koopmans disagrees. A recent WHO report, she notes, "makes really clear that few people [with MERS] have had the kind of follow-up you would want."

One sidelight of the new report is the strong suggestion that collaborations between Saudi researchers and outsiders continue to be contentious.

A previous collaboration between Lipkin and Memish (the lead person for MERS in the Saudi government) has ended. Although Memish's name has appeared on previous papers with Lipkin, it's missing this time.

"We're surprised to see this report coming from their lab, using probably our samples, but we're not aware of it [until now]," Memish says. Lipkin says the group collected its own specimens in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with a group from King Saud University.

Lipkin acknowledges his collaboration with Memish has broken down. "We've gone our separate ways, and I wish him well," Lipkin says.


Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV),[1] also termed EMC/2012 (HCoV-EMC/2012), is positive-sense, single-stranded RNA novel species of the genus Betacoronavirus. It was first reported on 24 September 2012 on ProMED-mail[2] by Egyptian virologist Dr. Ali Mohamed Zaki in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.



http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/MERS/
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is viral respiratory illness first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It is caused by a coronavirus called MERS-CoV. Most people who have been confirmed to have MERS-CoV infection developed severe acute respiratory illness. They had fever, cough, and shortness of breath. About half of these people died.

So far, all the cases have been linked to six countries in or near the Arabian Peninsula. No cases have been identified in the U.S. This virus has spread from ill people to others through close contact. However, the virus has not shown to spread in a sustained way in communities. The situation is still evolving.

CDC is working with partners to better understand the risks of this virus, including the source, how it spreads, and how infections might be prevented. CDC has provided information for travelers and is working with health departments, hospitals, and other partners to prepare for possible cases in the United States.




Wikipedia gives the Egyptian Tomb Bat as the only known source of the virus, clearly an outdated article, and the CDC simply tells very little about the disease. The most complete information I could find is in this NPR article. NPR Ian Lipkin of Columbia University, according to NPR, specifies camels as the “reservoir” for the virus, with the ability to spread to human with no intermediary, plus the virus has been found to spread from person to person as well, though it is not very infectious. The virus can also live on surfaces, or “fomites,” for up to four days and presumably be the source of some infections.

The virus first was detected in humans in 2012, but since the symptoms closely resemble other pneumonias, it may have been active in people for much longer than that. DNA evidence, though, does show that the virus emerged in its present form in 2012. It so far has killed 43% of those who have contracted it. It has not spread among people beyond the Middle East, though it has been found in camels in Africa and the Canary Islands, and since it does spread from person to person it could hop on a jet plane and come over to North America, conceivably. The good news is that it doesn't spread very fast. No information was given on treatments for the disease. Hopefully that will come soon as scientists continue to study it.