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As if the troops in Iraq don't have enough worries:
US Army Probes Pneumonia Deaths Among Iraq Troops
Updated 5:46 PM ET August 1, 2003
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among U.S. troops, with two dead and more than 100 sickened, officials said on Friday.
Lt. Gen. James Peake, the Army's surgeon general, has sent two doctors and four other experts to Iraq and two more doctors to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq, officials said.
"It is pneumonia. The question is what is the cause," said Lyn Kukral, spokeswoman for Peake and the Army Medical Command.
"The epidemiological teams will look and follow the facts wherever they lead," Kukral added. "You've got a healthy population and a young population (U.S. troops), and you have two soldiers who have died, and that's a concern."
Kukral said there have been more than 100 cases among U.S. troops in the Iraq region since the beginning of March, including 15 serious enough to warrant medical evacuation to get the patients ventilators to assist their breathing.
Of these 15, two Army soldiers died, 10 troops recovered and three remain hospitalized, Kukral said. Most of these 15 cases have involved Army soldiers, but at least one U.S. Marine was sickened, she added.
SEEKING COMMON THREAD
The teams being sent to Iraq and Germany are hunting for a possible common thread. The troops who have come down with pneumonia were geographically dispersed and came from different military units, officials said. The cases also occurred periodically over five months rather than all at once.
Kukral said no infectious agent such as a bacterium or virus has been discovered to be common to all the cases.
"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved," she said, adding that experts also have ruled out Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, as a possibility.
The six-person team heading to Iraq will include two physicians -- an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist -- as well as two microbiologists, a laboratory technician and a preventive medicine technician, Kukral said.
The Germany team is made up of an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist.
The teams will review medical records and question patients and medical workers. The Iraq team also will sample soil, water and air to gauge whether these factors might be playing a role, Kukral said.
Pneumonia is a sometimes fatal infection or inflammation of the lungs in which air sacs fill with pus and other liquid, interfering with oxygen reaching the blood stream. There are more than 30 known causes of pneumonia.
Kukral said the actual number of cases is not unexpected given the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and the region, adding that it may turn out that the cases are unrelated to one another. She said a desert environment can exacerbate respiratory problems.
US Army Probes Pneumonia Deaths Among Iraq Troops
Updated 5:46 PM ET August 1, 2003
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among U.S. troops, with two dead and more than 100 sickened, officials said on Friday.
Lt. Gen. James Peake, the Army's surgeon general, has sent two doctors and four other experts to Iraq and two more doctors to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq, officials said.
"It is pneumonia. The question is what is the cause," said Lyn Kukral, spokeswoman for Peake and the Army Medical Command.
"The epidemiological teams will look and follow the facts wherever they lead," Kukral added. "You've got a healthy population and a young population (U.S. troops), and you have two soldiers who have died, and that's a concern."
Kukral said there have been more than 100 cases among U.S. troops in the Iraq region since the beginning of March, including 15 serious enough to warrant medical evacuation to get the patients ventilators to assist their breathing.
Of these 15, two Army soldiers died, 10 troops recovered and three remain hospitalized, Kukral said. Most of these 15 cases have involved Army soldiers, but at least one U.S. Marine was sickened, she added.
SEEKING COMMON THREAD
The teams being sent to Iraq and Germany are hunting for a possible common thread. The troops who have come down with pneumonia were geographically dispersed and came from different military units, officials said. The cases also occurred periodically over five months rather than all at once.
Kukral said no infectious agent such as a bacterium or virus has been discovered to be common to all the cases.
"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved," she said, adding that experts also have ruled out Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, as a possibility.
The six-person team heading to Iraq will include two physicians -- an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist -- as well as two microbiologists, a laboratory technician and a preventive medicine technician, Kukral said.
The Germany team is made up of an infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist.
The teams will review medical records and question patients and medical workers. The Iraq team also will sample soil, water and air to gauge whether these factors might be playing a role, Kukral said.
Pneumonia is a sometimes fatal infection or inflammation of the lungs in which air sacs fill with pus and other liquid, interfering with oxygen reaching the blood stream. There are more than 30 known causes of pneumonia.
Kukral said the actual number of cases is not unexpected given the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and the region, adding that it may turn out that the cases are unrelated to one another. She said a desert environment can exacerbate respiratory problems.