Plagues,
Pestilences and Diseases
Rare flu-like virus on the rise: US
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Sept 30, 2011
A rare virus has killed three people and sickened nearly 100 in
Japan, the Philippines, the United States and the Netherlands over
the past two years, US health authorities said Friday.
The culprit is human enterovirus 68 (HEV68), and its respiratory
symptoms can be particularly dangerous to children, the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said in its Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report.
In six separate clusters of the virus that showed up worldwide,
patients commonly experienced cough, difficulty breathing and
wheezing.
The highest number of cases were found in Japan, where local
public health authorities reported more than 120 cases last year.
However, the CDC said it could only confirm clinical data for 11
of those patients, all children, one of whom died.
The Philippines had 21 cases in late 2008 and early 2009, causing
two deaths, the CDC said.
Other cases surfaced in the Netherlands and the US states of
Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, for 95 total confirmed cases
over two years.
The virus was first discovered in four children who were sick with
pneumonia in California in 1962, but subsequent incidences have
been rare and sporadic, according to the CDC.
"Identification of a large number of patients with HEV68
respiratory disease detected during a single season, such as
described in this report, is a recent phenomenon," it added.
"Whether this increase in recognized cases is attributable to
improved diagnostics or whether the clusters themselves represent
an emergence of the pathogen is unknown."
The CDC said its report aimed to highlight HEV68 as "an
increasingly recognized cause of respiratory illness" and urged
clinicians to report cases of unexplained respiratory illness to
public health authorities.
Human enterovirus is closely related to human rhinovirus, which
causes the common cold.