Cause of Guillain-Barré cases is under investigation, but gut microbe suspected.
TehPers
link
fedilink
English
16
edit-2
1Y

There’s an article? I thought it was just a headline!

For context:

Peru—a country of over 34 million people—typically sees fewer than 20 suspected cases per month of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (pronounced ghee-yan bar-ray or abbreviated GBS). But, between June 10 and July 15, the country tallied 130 cases, including the four deaths, bringing the year’s total to 231, the WHO reported Tuesday.

The cause of the outbreak is puzzling—even though this isn’t Peru’s first alarming GBS outbreak. In 2019, the country reported an unprecedented surge of nearly 700 cases between May and July, bringing the total to over 900. Before that, a large GBS outbreak was considered between 30 to 50 cases.

Researchers concluded that the culprit behind the extremely unusual 2019 outbreak was the intestinal pathogen, Campylobacter jejuni. The gut-dwelling bacteria is well-known as one of the most common causes of food poisoning and diarrheal cases in the world. But, less well-known, it’s also one of the leading triggers for GBS.

(Bold text is from me)

Edit: I find it a bit funny that they have to introduce Peru as being a country. Is this not a widely known fact?

autumn (she/they)
link
fedilink
English
61Y

there’s also a peru, indiana!

TehPers
link
fedilink
English
31Y

There’s also an Indiana, Pennsylvania!

Also, US cities love to butcher names of other places. At least two of the cities I’ve either lived in or friends have lived in were like that.

@SenorBolsa@beehaw.org
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
1Y

Hometown of Jimmy Stewart. It’s an interesting little city, seen better days but IUP basically keeps it afloat.

There’s also a Manchester in all northeastern states.

@thereticent@sopuli.xyz
link
fedilink
English
41Y

Pee-roo!

HA! Your edit just floored me, I didn’t even catch that. Lowest common denominator and all that jazz lol.

Pigeon
link
fedilink
English
14
edit-2
1Y

They’re just introducing the population size of the cou try, for comparison with the number of people affected. Saying “a country of over 34 million people” is a quick way to do that, though it could’ve been rephrased as “Peru - which has a popularion of over 34 million people -” or something.

Point is, it’s just an incidental redundancy in the way they phrased their delivery of the population number, I think, not an attempt to tell people “Peru is a country.”

@SenorBolsa@beehaw.org
link
fedilink
English
51Y

I think the point of that was mostly to give info on the population of Peru to put the other numbers into context. I know a lot but the approximate population of Peru doesn’t come to mind off the top of my head.

TehPers
link
fedilink
English
11Y

That’s fair. When I see a country name, the population of the country isn’t really something that comes to my mind since I just figure it’s a significant enough number of people (generally in the order of tens to hundreds of millions, except notably populous or small countries).

@SenorBolsa@beehaw.org
link
fedilink
English
11Y

It’s an order of magnitude difference in prevalence if Peru only had a population of 3 million, which if you asked me before I read that would have been a plausible number.

Create a post

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.


Guidelines for submissions:
  • Where possible, post the original source of information.
    • If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
  • Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
  • Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
  • Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
  • Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.


For US News, see the US News community.


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

  • 1 user online
  • 26 users / day
  • 64 users / week
  • 168 users / month
  • 663 users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 2.74K Posts
  • 15K Comments
  • Modlog