Conroe patient with 'mystery illness' diagnosed with H1N1
by Jeremy Desel / KHOU 11 News & Shern-min Chow / KHOU 11 News
Posted on December 18, 2013 at 5:08 PM
Updated yesterday at 11:52 PM
HOUSTON – At least one of the eight patients being treated for a mysterious illness at Conroe Regional Medical Center has tested positive for H1N1, according to Montgomery County health officials.
It's the same strain of H1N1 that caused a pandemic in 2009. Doctors have been seeing hundreds of new cases recently in Texas and nationwide. In fact, H1N1 is one of the viruses included in this year's flu shot.
The patient diagnosed with H1N1 is still alive. Two other surviving Conroe patients tested negative for H1N1. The results are still pending for one patient.
"So what we're doing now is we're retesting those patients who tested negative from the private lab," Montgomery County Medical Director Dr. Mark Escott said. "And those samples will be sent to the state and the CDC for confirmation testing."
The other four patients treated for the mystery illness in Conroe have died.
The illnesses started with flu-like symptoms, then progressed to pneumonia and, in some cases, organ failure. They all initially tested negative for the flu.
It’s been busy at the Conroe Urgent Care Clinic. Some 18 patients came in with flu-like symptoms. Physician Assistant Derrick Goodwill says on a daily basis, “We’re testing at least 5–7 people positive for H1N1 as opposed to October when we hardly had any.”
The commonly used RAPID flu test is not very reliable.
“The recommendation right now is to give Tamiflu to patients even if they don’t test positive,” Goodwill said.
That is also why Montgomery County health officials now plan to use a more reliable but costly and time consuming test on those patients sick from the ‘mystery’ bug and those who died from it.
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Read more here:
http://www.khou.com/community/Health-officials-Conroe-patient-with-mystery-illness-diagnosed-with-H1N1--236459811.htmlBeen watching this with increasing interest over the last two days.
BTW Conroe, TX is a suburb just north of Houston.
Quote:
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The Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) yesterday issued a statement that said the level of flu-like illness is "high" and that health providers are seeing illness increases in several parts of the state. With disease activity ramping up, it urged state residents who haven't been vaccinated to get flu shots for themselves and their families.
Texas and a handful of other southern states have been the nation's flu hot spots so far, according to the latest surveillance reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nationally, flu activity registered a modest jump, and the 2009 H1N1 has been the most common among subtyped strains, according to the CDC's most recent report.
Mark Escott, MD, the MCHD's medical director, said in an audio recording posted on the Montgomery County Police Reporter Web site that health officials are seeing an unusual pattern of serious illnesses, with patients having symptoms similar to flu, such as fever, sore throat, body aches, and fatigue. The eight patients have had complications such as pneumonia, which is expected in severe flu cases, he said.
The patients with serious illnesses range in age from 41 to 65, which Escott said is a bit unusual, because flu complications are most common in the very young and in adults older than age 65. "Because of the significant number of cases—half died—we are concerned about it, and we are investigating the cases," he said.
He said the numbers of flu-like illnesses have piled up over the past few months, and about 250 of the roughly 1,900 patients tested positive for influenza A or B.
The MCHD is in contact with health officials in the TDSHS and the city of Houston to coordinate efforts to identify what's causing the illnesses, Escott said. On its Facebook page the MCHD said the CDC is not in Texas assisting with the investigation and that the events so far don't meet the criteria that would trigger the CDC's involvement. However, in its update today the MCHD said the CDC is part of the discussions.
Escott urged area residents to take the usual infection control steps, such as using hand sanitizer, covering coughs and sneezes, and staying home when sick.
The MCHD today established a phone hotline to field questions about the flu-like illness cases and responded to questions from the public on its Facebook page.
The outbreak in Texas resembles a cluster of severe respiratory infections that occurred in Dothan, Ala., in May, an event that also raised public concern initially. However, tests revealed that the hospitalized patients had a variety of common respiratory viruses and bacteria, with no unusual pathogens. Ten patients in the same southeastern corner of the state were hospitalized with similar symptoms, and at least two deaths were reported.
Read more here:
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2013/12/texas-health-officials-probe-severe-flu-illness-clusterSo the question remains "Who was patient zero?" Where did this originate? Also note the weird age group.
Basically KHOU TV is the only one really following this at this point. The rest of the media are like "just get a flu shot."