Mystery Illness Strikes 11 In U.S.

The mystery illness that has killed at least 14 people around the world has apparently hit the United States, with health officials investigating 11 suspected cases - all involving people who have recently traveled to Asia.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has made 264 people around the world ill, according the World Health Organization. And despite reports from German and Hong Kong labs about possible causes of the disease, federal officials said more tests are needed.

"There's a lot we still don't know about this problem," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Julie Gerberding said Wednesday. "It's unfolding and the investigation is still unraveling."

Most of the cases worldwide have been in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore, mainly infecting health care workers or family members of ill patients.

Although more cases may be identified in the United States, people shouldn't worry if they haven't traveled recently to parts of Asia where the illness has appeared.

"We don't want people who haven't traveled to this region to be concerned about this problem, at least at this point in time," she said.

Gerberding said it's too early to say the 11 suspect cases in the United States are actually SARS, and that it may "take some days to know for sure."

She declined to say where the U.S. cases are, but health officials in New Mexico, California and New Jersey said they each had one case on the list.

In New Mexico, a patient from Albuquerque, who recently returned from Hong Kong, was in a hospital's respiratory isolation unit, state health officials said Wednesday.

Los Angeles County's public health officer said a man with SARS symptoms was recovering after being hospitalized Saturday. He fell ill March 11 after returning from a visit to Vietnam, Hong Kong and part of China.

The New Jersey case involved a 36-year-old woman who began complaining of fever and a cough more than a week before she traveled to Asia, state health officials said. She returned to the United States on March 2 and, her condition having worsened, was hospitalized. She was released Monday.

So far, the mystery bug has not been identified as a new flu strain. Instead, health investigators are focusing on a family of viruses called paramyxovirus.

Around the world, labs are examining samples for signs of paramyxovirus after German and Hong Kong health officials reported finding it in case specimens there. WHO said its labs will study other samples to see if the same virus is present.

"There is now a clue about what might be causing this," said Dr. David Heymann, WHO communicable diseases chief. "This clue will make it easier to diagnose patients."

But Gerberding and other experts cautioned that it's still too soon to be sure this is the culprit behind the mystery illness.

"The laboratories that have identified this virus are very good laboratories," Gerberding said. "But we don't at this point know what it means" because the virus was found in patients' nasal passages and "it hasn't yet been identify as the cause of the infection."

Paramyxovirus is part of a family of viruses that include respiratory syncytical virus and parainfluenza viruses as well as those that cause such common childhood illnesses as mumps and measles.

"My suspicion is it may be a new virus within that family," said Dr. Larry Anderson, a CDC virus expert.

On the other side of the world, medical investigators continue to puzzle over how the illness spread in a Hong Kong hotel.

Investigators said Wednesday that seven of those infected, including one who died, all stayed on or visited the same floor of Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel before the outbreak prompted a global alert. The discovery may be significant, because until now officials have said close personal contact is necessary to catch the illness.

"It would suggest that it spread through the air conditioning system, but you can't rule out person-to-person contact, since you don't know if they were even in the same room together," said Ronald Atlas, president of the American Society of Microbiology. "But everything says it is airborne."

Gerberding noted none of the hotel staff became ill. She said that investigating how the guests interacted will offer additional clues to the degree of contagion and how it's spread.

For now, all health officials know is that at least two of the guests visited each other in the hotel; contact among the others is being investigated.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson cited the mysterious bug in announcing the government's plan to spend $100 million toward vaccines that would fight off new strains of flu.

He said the new disease reminds everyone of "the potential danger posed by emerging infectious diseases."
By Daniel Yee