Vodka and SARS

Twenty-year-old female resident of the Russian city of Perm suspected that she had been infected with the SARS virus. The newspaper Novy Region reported, the woman went to a Chinese market on Monday, where she had "a close contact with a Chinese man," as the woman said. In the evening the lady had a shot of vodka and felt pain in her throat. Later she found out that her temperature was higher than usual. Having identified the symptoms, the woman decided that she had been infected with SARS.

When doctors arrived, they determined that the woman's ailment had nothing to do with the lethal virus. Doctors diagnosed alcoholic intoxication instead, though.

ER doctors said that it was the first time, when a patient had suspected the SARS virus infection. However, doctors did not exclude that such incidents would happen in the future too, because people were deeply concerned about the situation with the epidemic of SARS.

Another funny incident happened in the Far East of Russia. Six Russian workers repaired a road not far from the city of Blagoveschensk. The six men seriously suffered from the SARS virus, from the commotion around it, to be more precise. A local newspaper reported that several Chinese workers worked on another object not far from the road. The six Russian men decided to take precautions against the infection: they had been drinking vodka for a whole week. Vodka is traditionally considered to be the best remedy among the Russian people, so the men thought that it would not let them die. The six men bought the cheapest vodka, which eventually ended up the story: saving themselves from the Chinese virus, the workers bought a bottle of fake Chinese vodka and had a severe poisoning. A doctor, who examined the workers, said that it would take them a week to recover.