Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 1, 1993 TAG: 9306010089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. LENGTH: Medium
But the death toll from the flu-like disease has risen to 11 as researchers have ferreted out an earlier case that matches criteria established for the disorder, now known as unexplained respiratory distress syndrome, or URDS.
Researchers from New Mexico and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are still mystified about the cause of URDS, having ruled out the most common infectious agents, but the mostly likely explanation is a previously undiscovered virus. Intriguingly, all the victims have been young, apparently healthy people between the ages of 13 and 31. Most infectious agents, in contrast, strike infants and the old and infirm.
As many as 50 laboratory workers here and in Atlanta are attempting to isolate an infectious agent or antibodies from patients and are attempting to induce the disease in laboratory animals by injecting tissue samples or blood from victims, but they concede that it could be days, weeks or even months before the cause is identified.
Perhaps as many as 150 others are trying to identify a common food, environmental agent or other factor that links the victims, who come from scattered locations in the area. The only common factor identified so far is that the bulk of the victims have been Navajos and all of the victims have lived on or near the 24,000-square-mile reservation here, the country's largest.
The only bright spot, said Dr. Frederick Koster of University Hospital here, is that "the survival rate is decent if people get to the hospital early enough."
"At least we can give better advice to people now than we could last week," added Ron Wood of the Indian Health Service.
According to their refined description of URDS developed Monday, the early symptoms are fever, muscle aches and either cough, conjunctivitis (redness of the eyes) or headache. Fevers approach 103 degrees and the muscle aches strike primarily the legs, hips and lower back. "It feels like you just ran a marathon," Koster said. Although those symptoms sound like influenza, the victims do not have rash, runny nose and swollen lymph glands characteristic of flu.
As the disease progresses, patients develop an accumulation of fluids in their lungs that effectively strangles them. That progression can take as short a time as a few hours or as long as four days.
Treatment so far has involved forced ventilation of the lungs to help patients breathe and a broad spectrum of intravenous antibiotics to kill any bacteria that might be present. But Koster conceded that physicians don't know which actions have helped the patients.
So far, researchers know definitely that URDS is not linked to AIDS, sexual transmission or any of the most common bacteria and fungi.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB