Posted on 11/15/2007 12:07:57 PM PST by steve86
ATLANTA (AP) - A mutated version of a common cold virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, U.S. health officials said Thursday.
Adenoviruses usually cause respiratory infections that aren't considered lethal. But a new variant has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington and Texas, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The illness made headlines in Texas earlier this year, when a so- called boot camp flu sickened hundreds at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The most serious cases were blamed on the emerging virus and one 19-year-old trainee died.
"What really got people's attention is these are healthy young adults landing in the hospital and, in some cases, the ICU," said Dr. John Su, an infectious diseases investigator with the CDC.
There are more than 50 distinct types of adenoviruses tied to human illnesses. They are one cause of the common cold, and also trigger pneumonia and bronchitis. Severe illnesses are more likely in people with weaker immune systems.
Some adenoviruses have also been blamed for gastroenteritis, conjunctivitis and cystitis.
There are no good antiviral medications for adenoviruses. Patients usually are treated with aspirin, liquids and bed rest.
In the CDC report, the earliest case of the mutated virus was found in an infant girl in New York City, who died last year. The child seemed healthy right after birth, but then became dehydrated and lost appetite. She died 12 days after she was born.
Tests found that she been infected with a form of adenovirus, called Ad14, but with some little differences, Su said.
It's not clear how the changes made it more lethal, said Linda Gooding, an Emory University researcher who specializes in adenoviruses.
Earlier this year, hundreds of trainees at Lackland became ill with respiratory infections. Tests showed a variety of adenoviruses in the trainees, but at least 106—and probably more—had the mutated form of Ad14, including five who ended up in an intensive care unit
In April, Oregon health officials learned of a cluster of cases at a Portland-area hospital. They ultimately counted 31 cases, including seven who died with severe pneumonia. The next month, Washington state officials reported four hospitalized patients had the same mutated virus. One, who also had AIDS, died.
The Ad14 form of adenovirus was first identified in 1955. In 1969, it was blamed for a rash of illnesses in military recruits stationed in Europe, but it's been detected rarely since then. But it seems to growing more common. The strain accounted for 6 percent of adenovirus samples collected in 22 medical facilities in 2006, while none was seen the previous two years, according to a study published this month in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
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On the Net:
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr
Mutated cold virus
TEN? Run, hide!
ping
If you have nothing to contribute and too much time on your hands go volunteer at the hospital or something.
Thanks. I was trying to remember names to ping — yours is certainly one of them.
Antibiotic resistant Staph, brain eating amoeba, bull sharks in the Mississippi, and now a mutant cold virus – boy in the bubble isn’t looking all that silly anymore. ;)
Articles like this attract me like a moth to a flame....
I wish the CDC wasn’t politically influenced.
ping
In the same time 90,000 Americans have died from pneumonia and 54,000 from the flu.
Beat me to it.
50,000+ people die every year from the “normal” flu, but the MSM and public go into spasms at reports that two or twenty people died of bird flu or some other “new” disease.
Wasn't this was the hallmark of the pandemic in 1917 (or thereabouts).
Yeah. I looked up the stats at the CDC’s website when everyone was crying about bird flu.
I don’t think it even killed that many birds.
Steve, if you have a ping list, plz add me. Thx...and this is worth discussion considering the outbreak in such a young, healthy community as Lackland.
I just finished an excellent book about the 1918/19 epidemic. My hair still hasn’t uncurled.
Interesting factoid: It’s called the “Spanish flu” because Spain was about the only Western country that wasn’t in the war and therefore the only country without military censorship suppressing reporting of the epidemic. So the news media made it sound like a problem mainly in Spain initially. The epidemic appears to have actually started in the US, specifically Kansas.
With modern medicine a lot fewer people would die. But if we ever get a similar epidemic, the medical system will be utterly overwhelmed and the medical care most will get will be little better than flu victims received in 1919.
I thought the common cold was a coronavirus...I could be wrong...I’m just thinking that SARS was a coronavirus. I’m not sure how an adenovirus and a coronavirus differ...
I think natural immunity is much weaker than it used to be.
on the other hand detection is faster and the CDC is beefed up to prepare for bioterrorism.
on the other hand diseases can spread much faster because of easier transportation.
on the other hand I don’t have to go anywhere because I can do so much online...
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