Paradigm Shift Intervention Monitoring
twitter
Commentary
Growing
H3
Maryland Death Cluster Raises Concerns
Recombinomics Commentary 12:00
March 8, 2012
"We don't yet know what this is about," Orlowski said. "She has a fever and a cough. They were all together at a funeral last week. Individuals could easily have caught the flu–a large gathering of people, hugging, consoling, possibly sharing a meal."
"If the individuals had the flu at that time it is quite likely that others are showing signs of the flu," says Orlowski. 'If I was in that family and felt ill, I would seek medical attention early."
The above comments strongly suggest that the sister of the index case (81F) for the Calvert County, Maryland cluster is also infected by the H3 confirmed in her sister, nieces, and nephew. This case raises serious concerns about the Calvert County announcement of no new cases or clusters, which appears to be dependent on lab confirmation and thus, is ignoring symptomatic contacts, include the above hospitalized case.
Moreover, the above case has fever in cough, in contrast to media reports claiming that the only symptom upon hospitalization was fever.
Moreover, the funeral cited above is almost certainly the March 3 funeral (in Lusby) for a nephew, who was killed while falling a neighbor’s tree, also in Lusby. Thus, the transmission chain appears to be active, and new cases should be developing symptoms this week.
More information on cases under investigation would be useful, as would detail on the H3 testing (which has been withheld), including full sequences for all eight gene segments.
Recombinomics
Presentations
Recombinomics
Publications
Recombinomics
Paper
at Nature Precedings