Dothan, Ala Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
# 7313
A story we’ve been following for a couple of days now (see here, here, and here) is an outbreak of an unknown respiratory illness in the Dothan, Alabama area that has resulted in at least two deaths.
Today, during a webcast press conference held by the Alabama Department of Public Health, public health officials announced that test results are back on 7 of the cases, and no unusual pathogens were detected.
These cases were reportedly infected with a mixture of influenza A, Rhinovirus, and `normal’ bacterial pneumonia (see ADHP Press release)
While `flu season’ may be over, influenza is known to circulate at low levels year-round. And – as I can sadly attest right now – rhinovirus infections circulate during the summer as well.
Normally thought of as `mild’, or the `common cold’, rhinoviruses we now know can - on rare occasions - cause serious illness.
During the fall of 2009, we saw an outbreak among children of an unusually virulent rhinovirus strain (see When The `Flu’ Isn’t The Flu) diagnosed by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In 2010, in Study: HRV In Long-Term Care Facilities, we examined a research piece which looked at the incidence of Rhinovirus among patients in long-term care facilities in Canada during the last half of 2009.
Rhinovirus Outbreaks in Long-term Care Facilities, Ontario, Canada
DOI: 10.3201/eid1609.100476
Longtin J, Marchand-Austin A, Winter A-L, Patel S, Eshaghi A, Jamieson F, et al. Rhinovirus outbreaks in long-term care facilities, Ontario, Canada. Emerg
Infect Dis. 2010 Sep; [Epub ahead of print]
Essentially what they found was a high prevalence of HRV (Human Rhinovirus) infection (60%), and that these viruses were implicated in a number of serious illnesses and deaths.
Pretty much proving that it doesn’t necessarily require some exotic virus to put you in a bad way.
Returning to the Press conference, Sharon Sanders of FluTrackers tweeted the highlights below.
