Posted on 02/21/2003 11:33:34 PM PST by Pro-Bush
Fremont toddler's flu death deepens probe
Thursday, February 20, 2003
By Kathleen Longcore
The Grand Rapids Press
A 21/2-year-old Fremont boy who died on Valentine's Day is West Michigan's third casualty after a flu-like illness and the state's seventh child death since late January.
Services were held Tuesday for Jack Henry Williams, the son of Robert and Michelle Williams, who died at home. He had been sick with a flu-like illness, and the death certificate will list the flu as the cause of death, said Curt Crandell, director of Crandell Funeral Homes Inc. in Fremont.
Jack, adopted from South Korea in August 2000, would have been 3 in April. He was his parents' "gift from God," according to his obituary, and he loved his dog Murphy, books, dinosaurs, cartoons, wrestling, singing "Old MacDonald," watching "Blues Clues," going to church and drinking chocolate milk.
A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed Wednesday that researchers will include the West Michigan deaths in their investigation of child deaths in Michigan and northwestern Ohio.
Those include East Kentwood High School sophomore Billy Joe Green III, who died Saturday, and Ashley Susan Racine, 11, a Hastings Middle School sixth-grader, who died Feb. 12. Both experienced pneumonia that came on very swiftly after flu-like symptoms.
The Michigan Department of Community Health contacted the CDC for help, said CDC spokeswoman Katie Hoskins.
"They wanted us to help confirm causes of death. Are we sure this is a flu virus, and are we sure this is a pneumonia we see following the flu? That's what we're looking at," Hoskins said, noting that tests on tissue samples could take several weeks.
Just over 90 children under 18 die in the United States each year from pneumonia and complications from influenza, Hoskins said, so it is unusual to have seven deaths in southern Michigan and two in northern Ohio within a few weeks. She said she knew of no similar flu investigation in any other state.
The deaths have caused worry over common viruses that people call "the flu" but which are not true influenza, said Dr. Mimi Emig, a Grand Rapids infectious disease specialist.
Emig said stomach and intestinal viruses are often mistakenly called "the flu." They make a person feel lousy but they don't usually carry the risk of the true flu.
However, any virus or infection can weaken the body's immune system and make it susceptible to dangerous complications like pneumonia, she said. And pneumonia can come on all by itself, with no preceding illness.
A University of Michigan flu expert, Dr. Arnold Monto, said the outbreak in southeast Michigan is the worst in three years. But Kent County Health Department officials who track absences from area schools say numbers here are running about normal for this time of year.
In general, adults with the flu are contagious for four or five days and children for seven or eight days. Those who have symptoms are urged to stay at home and not expose others.
The CDC tests will determine which Michigan cases had true influenza, which comes in three strains -- two type A viruses and one type B.
Health officials want to stay on top of which flu bugs are circulating to make sure the vaccine they offer is effective, Emig said.
"Influenza mutates every year and vaccine makers try to predict what those changes are going to look like," Emig said. "So far, both (influenza) A and B are circulating in Michigan, and this year's vaccine has been very effective against both."
Federal officials now recommend flu shots for children as well as adults.
Five children suffering from influenza-like illnesses have died in Virginia; North Carolina officials investigate 18-month-old boy's death
Saturday, February 22, 2003
BY PATTY MAHER
News Staff Reporter
The federal Centers for Disease Control has expanded its investigation into mysterious child deaths to include Virginia, where five children suffering from flu-like illnesses have died since Sunday.
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The CDC first began investigating a series of deaths in Michigan between Jan. 25 and Feb. 3. CDC officials later added the deaths of two Ohio children to their inquiry. All the children suffered symptoms, such as fever and aches,, common to viral or bacterial infections.
In Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia alone, at least 14 children have died suddenly following fevers and respiratory infections. Also, The Associated Press reported Friday that North Carolina health officials were investigating the death of an 18-month-old boy who died Thursday at Albemarle Regional Hospital in Elizabeth City, just south of the area where four of the Virginia children died.
Federal health officials don't know the degree to which similar deaths are occurring in additional states. A spokeswoman from the CDC said her organization Friday afternoon sent notices to all state health departments to warn physicians and parents to be on the alert for respiratory and flu-like infections.
Meanwhile, Ann Tripp of Ypsilanti still waits to learn what caused her 14-year-old son, David, to die Jan. 25. His was the first of the deaths to capture the interest of public health officials. She said she finds the growing number of mysterious child deaths unbelievable.
"I am really anxious to find out if this is a virus that all the kids are getting that is very similar. Is it going in and attacking them each in vulnerable organs that these children have? Each of them isn't dying from the same thing, but they are going in with the same thing - a cold-virus kind of thing."
Tripp is braced for the fact that it may be weeks before results from David's tests are available.
"It's hard to put any kind of closure on this when you don't know," Tripp said.
Meanwhile, Geralyn Lasher, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Community Health, said tests today confirmed that a Newaygo County boy died Feb. 14 of Influenza Type A. The victim was identified as 2-year-old Jack Henry Williams, a child from South Korea who was adopted in August 2000 by Robert and Michelle Williams.
Meghan Spieles, 6, of Ann Arbor Township, and Alana Yaksich, 5, of Bloomfield Hills, also had influenza Type A. Meghan's death was attributed to pneumonia and Alana's to flu-related encephalitis, a swelling of the brain.
So far only a few of the children have tested positive for influenza, although public health officials suspect it may have been a factor in several of the deaths. Because some of the children, Including Tripp, became ill so suddenly and died without having had flu tests, pathologists must rely on sophisticated tissue-sample tests, which can take weeks to conduct and don't always provide definite answers.
CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben said that although all five of the Virginia children experienced upper-respiratory infections, nothing else so far has linked the cases. Nor have the cases been linked to those in Michigan and Ohio. Officials still don't know what caused the Virginia deaths, Harben said. Tissue samples will be sent for evaluation to the CDC, where studies are being done on the Michigan deaths.
Awilda A. Carter, mother of 2-year-old Maria Carter, the first Virginia child to die, said her daughter had been running a fever and vomiting. She said doctors initially said the girl had an ear infection but changed the diagnosis to influenza after a second visit.
"She was running around and playing," Carter said. "She kept having a fever, but she never got more sick." Carter said her daughter fell asleep on the couch Sunday and never woke up.
After the autopsy, doctors told the family they thought a virus had attacked the girl's heart muscle, Carter said. Tripp said earlier this month that Washtenaw County Medical Examiner Bader Cassin told her the same thing. Cassin has not returned a reporter's phone calls for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Went through that back in September right after school started. And I know of many people that had the same, and said the same. Milder but lasted for about 6 weeks.
Sounds like Flu symptoms to me..But no reports of multiple organ failure YET with the deaths in VA.
No fits (seizures) either, that I know of.
Thanks for the information. Learn something new everyday.
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