# 5624
A brief update to yesterday’s blog Catching Up With The Korean `Mystery’ Pneumonia which mentioned the first suspected family cluster (mother/daughter) in the recent spate of Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) cases being treated at a Seoul Hospital.
The Korean Herald (h/t Alert on FluTrackers) is reporting today that a second child in the above mentioned family – a 1 year old – is also suspected of suffering from IPF, although the child is too young for lung biopsy and so the diagnosis is not certain.
Ministry probes mystery disease
2011-06-13 18:25
The government is keeping a close watch on three members of a family reportedly suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The disease is thought to be similar to the mysterious virus which recently killed three pregnant women.
As the story tells us, although there are many unanswered questions surrounding these cases, the Korean government continues to offer assurances that whatever the cause – they do not believe it to be an infectious disease.
The story also points out that while these cases are similar, they may not be related to the earlier cases (see The Korean `Mystery’ Pneumonia) reported in April and May.
The Korean language press has been covering this story fairly extensively, and you’ll find an ongoing thread at FluTrackers with many machine translations.
While sometimes useful, these automated translations tend to be difficult to interpret, and so I use them sparingly.
For now, the good news is that whatever the cause (viral, bacterial, fungal, environmental) of these illnesses - the number of cases remains small - and there are no obvious signs of human transmission.
Of course, this story continues to evolve and we’ll keep an eye on it.
