# 5621
A month ago, in The Korean `Mystery’ Pneumonia, I wrote about confusing, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory reports regarding a number of pregnant women in a Seoul Hospital with a `mystery’ respiratory virus.
At the time, there were 8 pregnant women, and 1 man - who came from different hospitals and clinics across Korea – suffering from an unusually aggressive (and rapidly fulminating) form of Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) – a scaring and stiffening of lung tissue without a known cause that normally takes months or years to manifest.
While the cause of IPF is unknown, it normally attacks people over the age of 50, and affects both genders equally. Which makes its presentation here - primarily in younger, pregnant women – more than a little unexpected.
From the early reports, it appeared that these 9 patients:
- had no previous contact with each other
- had been transferred from various clinics around the country
- had occurred over an period of a month or more
- and perhaps most importantly, victim’s families and contacts had not developed similar symptoms.
Which, quite frankly, only deepened the mystery.
Although this disease is being referred to as a `mystery virus’ in the media, its exact etiology (viral, bacterial, fungal, or environmental) remains unknown.
In the thirty days since those early reports, we’ve heard very little, except that a second patient died on May 26th. This from the Korean Herald.
Mystery virus claims 2nd victim
May 27, 2011
The second victim of a mystery virus that has infected eight patients from different parts of the country died yesterday.
According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus, dubbed “acute interstitial pneumonia” by health authorities, killed the first pregnant woman on May 10. The second pregnant woman died at 4 a.m. yesterday.
Two days later, Korean media reported on another pregnant woman – not among the original 8 – who at the time was presumed to have died from the same lung disease (see JoonAng Daily report Third pregnant woman dies of virus).
Within a couple of days, however, new reports surfaced that cast doubt on this third fatality being related to the other cases.
You can find a long (60+ message) thread on these media reports (many machine translated) on FluTrackers going back to May 9th.
On June 6th, Alert posted on FluTrackers a Korean language article that appeared on Hankooki.com whose title – when translated – pretty much says it all.
Severe lung disease, epidemiologic studies do not reveal the cause
Health authorities "is not an epidemic"
Which is the last we’ve heard on this story until today.
RoRo, another of the hardworking FluTrackers newshounds, picked up a report from Yonhap news this morning that doesn’t reveal the cause, but that does add a new wrinkle.
For the first time, we have two family members presenting with the same IPF symptoms.
Both (a 32 year-old mother & her 6 year-old daughter) are in critical condition, on respirators, and are in need of lung transplants.
2011/06/12 16:39 KST
Unidentified lung disease found in family members
SEOUL, June 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has detected what could be seen as the first case of members of the same family suffering from an unidentified severe acute lung disease, the state-run disease control agency said on Sunday.
A 32-year-old woman and her 6-year-old daughter were hospitalized in Seoul after their lung tissues became hardened and they had difficulties breathing, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Although this report goes on to state that `The case is raising fears over the spread of an unknown virus’, it isn’t at all clear that the cause is viral or – for that matter – even a contagious pathogen.
Whatever this is, it would appear to have a preference for adult females, most of whom are pregnant.
The good news is, the number of cases remains very small - and with the exception of these latest two cases - all appear epidemiologically unrelated.
And so the investigation into this mystery continues.
