Mysterious illness kills 2 in southeast Alabama

[Bosonic]

Source: AP

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A mysterious respiratory illness has left five people hospitalized and two dead in southeast Alabama, state health officials said Tuesday.

Seven people have been admitted to hospitals with a fever, cough and shortness of breath in recent weeks, Alabama Department of Public Health spokeswoman Mary McIntyre said in a statement.

Two of the seven have died. The Alabama Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control Respiratory Laboratory are analyzing lab tests from all seven patients. McIntyre says officials hope to have preliminary results on the samples back by Wednesday or Thursday morning.

The illness was first reported late last week and the last of the seven patients was hospitalized Monday, McIntyre said.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/mysterious-illness-kills-2-southeast-alabama

[JesterCS]

1. possibly related to oil pollution? n/t

[Chemisse]

2. If so, that would have happened a few years ago

and/or not all of a sudden.

It would be nice to get more info about this.

[mainer]

3. Travel history? Middle East or Asia?

Young or old? Living in pig country? Avian exposure? Boy, this article doesn't tell us a lot.

[fasttense]

4. The bubonic plague?

Symptoms are similar and the west has had it in rodents since about the 1400s. It's probably moving east because of global warming.

[Marrah_G]

7. There is the Hantavirus out in the south west states

That's from some particular rodent there though. Who knows though, these things mutate and change to survive.

[laundry_queen]

5. Hope it's not that coronavirus that has been circulating in the middle east

it's pretty deadly - SARS redux.

[Marrah_G]

6. Hopefully they can track it back to a cause quickly

The CDC and WHO are pretty darn good at this sort of thing.

[mainer]

8. More info: no foreign travel.

and patients appear to have had no contact with each other. Age range all over the place. One confirmed H1N1.

Let's not forget the great flu pandemic of 1918 began in Kansas, near pig farms.

I wonder if these patients lived in farming country.

[elleng]

10. Wasn't the 'great flu epidemic' related to soldiers returning from abroad?

[mainer]

11. It was called the "Spanish flu"

but it actually arose in barracks of American soldiers stationed in Kansas. The flu traveled to Europe with these soldiers, and then back to the US in a more virulent form.

[elleng]

12. Giotcha. Thanks.

My grandmother, whom I never met, passed on as a result of caring for the ill, in New York City.

[siligut]

13. One confirmed H1N1?

Not good, of course. Still need more information.

[shebornik]

9. Plenty of choices to look at

Here in the central valley of California we have what is commonly called valley fever. It is a respiratory illness caused by a fungus found in the soil. Recently several guests of the prison industry, which has facilities every 30 or 40miles up and down the valley, have died from this disease, and many more remain sick. The symptoms are the same as those mentioned in the article, and they are very uncomfortable. As mentioned in some of the other comments, the changing climate and all the possibilities for hitchhiking diseases it could be one of many things.