Free Republic

DENVER — Again reversing course, health officials announced late Monday that a Denver Health patient under observation for possible Ebola virus exposure will in fact be tested for the virus, state health department officials said. Early Monday morning, a spokesman for Denver Health Medical Center said the patient had recently returned from areas of Africa where the Ebola virus was present and was being monitored.

A meningitis outbreak at the University of Maryland may be related to another virus that has swept across the country during recent months, though further testing is being conducted to determine the possibility. If the tests are positive, it would mean that yet another manifestation of enterovirus-68 has occurred. In Maryland, the state public health lab is conducting a broad range of testing on specimens submitted to the agency, state epidemiologist Dr. David Blythe says. Agency officials would not specify whether testing for EV-68 was occurring and did not confirm whether samples had been sent to the Centers for Disease...

PEORIA, AZ - A Peoria elementary school student who was battling a serious respiratory condition has died, the school district confirmed. News of the student's illness sparked concerns Tuesday over the possibility that enterovirus 68 had made its way into Arizona.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Michigan toddler Madeline Reid died Friday in her parents' arms. Doctors say she'd been battling Enterovirus D-68 when her heart failed. Lab tests will have to confirm the Enterovirus was directly responsible for the death of Madeline, 4-year-old Eli Waller of New Jersey, and 4 others. Nearly 700 people, mostly kids, have been infected with Enterovirus D-68 in 46 states....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis in Colorado children and whether the culprit might be a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday sent doctors an alert about the polio-like cases and said the germ - enterovirus 68 - was detected in four out of eight of the sick children who had a certain medical test. The status of the ninth case is unclear. The virus can cause paralysis but other germs can, too. Health officials don't know whether the virus...