Child dies of Enterovirus in Rhode Island, man infected by Ebola in Texas.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW YORK: The United States is getting hit by three virulent viruses, which can prove to be fatal in some cases, just ahead of the flu season.
The deadly virus Ebola, which is ravaging the people of West Africa, seems to be making inroads into the US, as two people are now being monitored for the virus in Dallas, Texas, with one confirmed case.
USA Today reported that health officials are closely monitoring a possible second Ebola patient who had close contact with the first person to be diagnosed in the U.S., the director of Dallas County’s health department said Wednesday.
All who have been in close contact with the man diagnosed are being monitored as a precaution, Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, said in a morning interview with WFAA-TV.
The director assured residents that the public isn’t at risk because health officials have the virus contained.
The first patient, whose condition was upgraded to serious Wednesday but has not yet been publicly identified, was in contact with several children before he was hospitalized, health officials said.
Each of those children have been kept home from school and are under precautionary monitoring, Thompson said, reported Today.
The New York Times reported that the infected man, who had flown into Dallas from Liberia 10 days ago, had shown no symptoms of the disease while on the flight and that he had posed no threat to other passengers.
The patient is the first traveler known to have brought the virus to the United States on a passenger plane, and he is the first to be given an Ebola diagnosis outside of Africa, where the disease has already killed thousands.
The man started showing symptoms on September 24 and sought medical care at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas on September 26, but was sent home, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When the man returned to the hospital two days later, his condition had worsened. He is now listed as in serious condition, said the Times.
Anyone who starts running a fever or having symptoms is isolated and tested for Ebola. If the test is positive, that person is kept in isolation and treated, and his or her contacts are then traced for 21 days. The process is repeated until there are no new cases.
There is also a scare that the enterovirus 68 infection is beginning to spread more in the country, with the first fatality coming from Rhode Island.
CBS Connecticut reported that The Rhode Island Health Department says a child has died from complications of an unusual respiratory virus that has been affecting children across the U.S.
Health officials said Wednesday that the 10-year-old girl died last week of a staph infection associated with the enterovirus 68 infection, which it called “a very rare combination.”
The Valley Breeze identified the girl as 10-year-old Emily Ortrando.
Department spokeswoman Christina Batastini says there have been no deaths in Rhode Island directly attributed to enterovirus 68. She said she could not say where the child lived or was treated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the virus has been confirmed in 472 people in 41 states and the District of Columbia. So far, no deaths have been attributed to the virus.
The virus can cause mild to severe illness, with the worst cases needing life support for breathing difficulties. The strain isn’t new but it’s rarely seen.
In Colorado health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis due to the virus, reported the Associated Press.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week 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 caused any of the children’s arm and leg weaknesses or whether it’s just a germ they coincidentally picked up.
The cases come amid an unusual wave of severe respiratory illness from enterovirus 68. The germ is not new — it was first identified in 1962 and has caused clusters of illness before, including in Georgia and Pennsylvania in 2009 and Arizona in 2010. Because it’s not routinely tested for, it’s possible the bug spread in previous years but was never distinguished from colds caused by other germs, said CBS.
This year, the virus has gotten more attention because it has been linked to hundreds of severe illnesses. Beginning last month, a flood of sick children began to hit hospitals in Kansas City, Missouri, and Chicago — kids with trouble breathing, some needing oxygen or more extreme care such as a breathing machine. Many — but not all — had asthma before the infection.
Physicians are also getting to be wary of a mosquito-borne virus termed Chikungunya that can cause debilitating joint pain lasting for years, which has spread to the US after infecting hundreds of thousands of people in the Caribbean and Central America, reported Bloomberg.
Chikungunya is an African name meaning “to become contorted.” While the illness, first identified in Tanzania in 1952, has long bedeviled Africa and Asia, the only recorded cases in the U.S. before July involved patients who contracted the virus abroad.
Now, 11 cases have been confirmed as originating in Florida, spurring concern this may be the beginning of the type of explosive growth seen elsewhere from a disease that has no vaccine or cure. Medical and environmental experts are debating how best to quell the outbreak before it takes off.
Patients who contract Chikungunya have joint swelling and pain, fever, headache and rash for about a week, though some symptoms last months or years in some patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the disease generally isn’t fatal, more than 100 people have died in the Western Hemisphere since December, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Treatment includes hydration, rest and medicine that reduces fever or pain such ibuprofen or acetaminophen.
Now that Chikungunya is in Florida, it could infect 10,000 people in that state alone, according to Walter Tabachnick, the director of the Florida Medical Entymology Laboratory, who said his estimate is based on the exponential growth of other outbreaks, reported Bloomberg.
More than 700,000 people, for instance, are suspected of being infected with the virus in South America, Central America and the Caribbean since it appeared there, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
An outbreak of several thousand people in Florida could swamp existing medical facilities, putting at risk the state’s large elderly population, according to Tabachnick.
2 Comments
“The public isn’t at risk because officials have the virus contained”
100% certified bullshIt
“The public isn’t at risk because officials have the virus contained”
100% certified bullshIt