CDC Considers Mystery Illness

By Ted Vigodsky

Atlanta, Ga. –

Federal health officials went into

emergency mode on Friday – when they became aware that the mysterious, flu-like illness had made its way from the Far East to North America.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson spoke to the media Saturday.

“The Department of Health and Human Services is applying a full-court press, to learn more about this outbreak and how it might impact on the United States,” he said.

Thompson has been making some high-level contacts, while H.H.S. and C.D.C. personnel assist World Health Organization officials.

“We've also contacted the Ministry of Health, my counterpart in China,” he said, “and I had a face-to-face meeting with the Deputy Minister of Health about a week to 10 days ago, asking them to make sure that they would cooperate with us. Because we have to have their willingness and their access into China, to make sure we can get to the root causes of this particular disease.”

For C.D.C. Director Dr. Julie Gerberding and her staff, the big challenge now is trying to figure out what we're dealing with.

“What we know so far about this outbreak is that the people who appear to be most at risk are either health care workers, taking care of sick people, or family members or household contacts of those that are affected,” she says. “That pattern of transmission is what we would typically expect to see from a contagious respiratory illness, or a flu-like illness. But we have an open mind. And let me emphasize that we will be keeping an open mind on this, as we go forward. We don't know the causes of this. And until we have laboratory information to point us in the right direction, we cannot jump to any conclusion one way or another.”

Two people in Canada have died from the illness. While there have been no reported cases in the U.S. so far, Gerberding says they're investigating the cases of two people who had been traveling in this country.

A doctor, believed to have been infected, was taken off a New York-to-Singapore flight while returning home Saturday. He was quarantined in Germany, along with his wife and another doctor.

The other suspected case hits close to home.

“One of the family members of patients who had traveled to Hong Kong did visit Atlanta, and is reported to have developed some respiratory symptoms as they were leaving this country and returning to Canada,” says Dr. Gerberding.

“The Georgia State Health Department is investigating the exposure potential here among contacts and people who were co-workers of the individual, she notes. “In addition, we are working with the airlines to assess the passengers who may have been on the plane when the individual returned to Canada, to be sure that we're not overlooking an opportunity to detect illness – or alert them that they need to seek medical attention, should they develop a fever or other symptoms of the illness.”

“Investigations of the patients in Georgia and New York are the only two cases that we are investigating in the United States at this point in time.”

The only other times the C.D.C. has activated its Emergency Operations Center was last year, during the West Nile Virus outbreaks – and during the Anthrax attacks in 2001.