6 Alabama kids were on life support with flu

indigo girl · Jun 5, 2007

The parents of the 15 yr old that died in April in CT have posted this link today on a flu forum. They are saying that this is what happened to their daughter. She did have multi organ failure. They are not medical people. I do not know what to think. It is very difficult to read their posts because they are grieving tremendously. They are still seeking information from their daughter's doctors about what happened and why.

From what I understand, this scenario is also consistent with what happened to at least one case in Alabama, but that child survived. At least four of those kids were on ECMO.

http://www.cytokinestorm.com/

I am not interpreting what any of this means.

indigo girl · Jul 7, 2007

An unusually virulent form of type A flu virus that progresses to death within 24 hours has parents in Perth, Australia panicked. It would be winter there, the time for a seasonal influenza to hit.

Look at what happened to their ER departments:

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2007/07/australia-child.html

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2007/07/more-on-the-per.html

The medical clinic at Joondalup Hospital was forced to close its doors at 8.30 last night when it became unable to deal with any more patients.
Waiting times at hospital emergency departments blew out by hours, after-hours GP clinics were swamped across Perth and the flu hotline had 130 callers at one time.
Extra staff were rostered at hospitals over the weekend.

indigo girl · Jul 7, 2007

They are saying that this flu was an H3, type A influenza, however, they are NOT

saying which H3. Implying that it should be covered by a seasonal flu shot is not

the same thing is saying exactly which virus this is. Will they sequence this virus and make those sequences public? If they did, we might begin to understand why

there was such a rapid progression of symptoms. Twenty four hours from first symptoms to death is unusually severe.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=89952&postcount=3

indigo girl · Jul 7, 2007

Does it sound like they will do autopsies?

Those poor parents, I can not imagine how they must feel.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/07/1972705.htm

Health workers in Western Australia are preparing for another busy night as anxious parents seek medical attention for young children who have flu symptoms.
The Health Department has advised parents whose children have a fever, headache, runny nose or a cough to take them to a doctor after the deaths of three children in Perth in the past week.
All of the children had Influenza AH3 strain and tests are under way to determine if they had any other infections.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=89996&postcount=7

indigo girl · Jul 9, 2007

Co-infection with Streptococcus implicated in the influenza deaths in Perth, Australia:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2007/07/08/1972967.htm

Meanwhile the ability of their healthcare system to cope with the

increased number of patients being seen is of interest. There are

valuable lessons to be learned here with regards to surge capacity and

pandemic flu planning:

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/08/1972994.htm?section=justin

Hospitals across the Perth metropolitan area are continuing to be inundated with anxious parents whose children have flu symptoms.
The Princess Margaret Hospital is assessing twice as many children as normal at its emergency department because of fears about a potentially deadly strain of flu.
Ambulances are being diverted from two outer metropolitan hospitals, Armadale-Kelmscott and Joondalup Health Campus, because of the number of patients.
Armadale-Kelmscott Hospital has reported more cases of children being taken to emergency departments than normal.
Princess Margaret Hospital Doctor Robyn Lawrence says about 10 children are turning up to the emergency department every hour.
"The waits are averaging between two and three hours at the present time," she said.

indigo girl · Jul 10, 2007

When they say streptococcus, do they mean strep pneumonia?

These kids were under age 5. Prevnar is a routine vaccination for young children.

http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/WELCOME/immunizations/pneumococcus.html

So how would they get strep pneumonia?

Or do they mean strep pyogenes? Now I am really confused. Help! Which are they referring to? They have not been very clear with this information.

And even so, from first symptoms to death in 24 hours is incredibly fast. What

organism could do that?

indigo girl · Jul 19, 2007

Another child in Western Australia has died from a bacterial infection? This time they say there was no influenza involved. Reports indicate this was also a rapid progression of symptoms. This is so sad. Parents in that area must be very concerned.

http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2007/07/australian-mystery-illness-claims-4th.html

The Health Department's director of communicable diseases, Dr Paul Van Buynder, said today:
"It's not clear what's causing the illness.
"At this point we are unable to say what the cause of death has been in these four children.
"This child appears to have had a very similar illness to the first three, has had a very rapid course of illness, but other than that we have no other information at this point.
"The four deaths are linked only in that they have had a very similar cause of illness.
"We are unable to find a single organism which is the same in any of the children and the children themselves have had no contact that we are aware of.''

indigo girl · Jul 20, 2007

This Michigan teen's death originally was diagnosed as a meningitis case.

Now after autopsy, they are saying pneumonia secondary to URI.

He was also a lacrosse player as was the 15 yr old CT girl, who died in April.

We know that the lacrosse fields in northern states are frequented by Canadian geese. Is it a factor? We don't know, but I think it should be noted.

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-45/1184687424181970.xml&coll=5#continue

indigo girl · Jul 21, 2007

Mystery of the toddlers' deaths deepens:

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1984395.htm

...the Health Department has now revealed that the fourth child who died as a result of a virus in combination with a bacterial infection, not the flu virus, but it appears another virus.
Now it appears that all four children had similar bacterial infections but not the same infections. Two had streptococcal infection and the other two have had a pneumococcal infection which is also classified as streptococcal but quite different. Now these are common bacteria carried by many people and they usually cause no symptoms at all and it's extremely uncommon to see these bacteria leading to death.
The health authorities here are now looking for what they call an "alternate course" because they haven't had the same bacterial organism and it's possible that a strain of this common bacteria has become particularly virulent.
PAUL VAN BUYNDER: We've reassessed the pathology specimens that we have available to us at the moment and it now appears likely that the fourth child also had a viral infection an adenovirus which is different to the influenza virus, that may have been involved in the rapid course of the illness.
It now appears that the children are passing away with co-infections of a virus plus a bacterial infection at the same time. The adenovirus is a very common virus during winter that causes basic background winter symptoms.
MARK COLVIN: Dr Paul Van Buynder. Now, David, does this actually just make it far more difficult in the sense that they're not entirely related but there may be some connection that the authorities haven't been able to pick up on yet?
DAVID WEBER: That's right. It has made it more difficult in the sense that these are four similar but very different conditions that have caused these four deaths and the only apparent similarity seems to be that the death has been fairly rapid after the onset of illness and in one case, this week's case, there was no flu-like symptoms as such, there was a fever, and the health authorities here are saying it is extraordinary.