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Pneumonia draws Armyâs attention: Medical teams sent to Iraq after soldiers get sick
Followup to a question asked here a couple days ago. This tells us pretty much what we already know. EFL. The Army is sending two special medical investigation teams to Iraq and Germany to look into pneumonia-related cases that killed two soldiers and sickened about 100 others who were deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Office of the Army Surgeon General made the announcement Thursday, the same day MSNBC reported that mysterious cases of pneumonia had been surfacing among U.S. troops in Iraq. That news report came following a July 16 account in a Missouri newspaper reporting the death of a 20-year-old Missouri National Guardsman. Family members of Spc. Josh Neusche told the Springfield News-Leader that the young soldier collapsed July 2 while in Baghdad. He was taken to an Army hospital in Germany where doctors diagnosed him with what they believed to be pneumonia. His lungs filled with fluid and his liver, kidneys and muscles began to fail rapidly, family members said. Neusche died July 12. In a statement released Friday morning, the Army surgeon generalâs office said about 100 soldiers -- operating in and around Iraq -- developed pneumonia since March 1. About 14 of those cases were "serious enough to warrant medical evacuation for ventilator support," the surgeon general said. Of those cases, Neusche and another soldier died, three soldiers remain hospitalized while nine soldiers have recovered from their illnesses. The name of the other dead soldier was not available. The Army surgeon generalâs office said the number of cases "does not exceed expectations" of pneumonia-related illnesses in the Army. About nine of 10,000 soldiers get pneumonia each year, the surgeon generalâs office said, adding that, from 1998 to 2002, pneumonia or pneumonia-related illnesses claimed the lives of 17 soldiers. Sure, but the composition and circumstances of those deaths are likely very different from what weâre seeing now. One of the surgeon generalâs newly activated Epidemiological Consultation, or EPICON, teams will assist medical staff in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, looking into the cause of the illness. (Most of the pneumonia cases have been evacuated to Landstuhl.) The other EPICON team will supplement investigations in Iraq. The Landstuhl-based EPICON team will review patient records and laboratory results. The Iraq-based EPICON team will conduct soil, water and air samples. Officials with the 3rd Infantry Division said Friday they were not aware of any of the divisionâs soldiers suffering from pneumonia. The divisionâs 1st and 2nd brigades remain in Iraq. The divisionâs 3,700-soldier 3rd Brigade returned home to Fort Benning last month, but none of them have reported suffering pneumonia-related symptoms, said division spokeswoman Laurie Kemp. Capt. Paul Jacobson, the divisionâs officer-in-charge of the medical post-deployment of returning soldiers, said the Army has intensified post-deployment health monitoring of its troops since the first Gulf War. "After Desert Shield/Desert Storm we didnât have the greatest track record," Jacobson said. "So this time weâre trying to be extremely proactive with the medical needs of our service members." Returning soldiers are required to complete forms addressing questions that deal with mental and physical health, Jacobson said. Army officials review the evaluations, determining if soldiers require further treatment. Blood samples also are taken from each soldier. Those samples become part of a national repository that can be cross-checked with inexplicable ailments suffered by other soldiers. "If we have soldiers who present signs and symptoms that arenât specific to a disease that we are not aware of -- as we were unaware in Desert Storm," those samples will be "pulled from the shelves for that group of soldiers who were in that particular area and tested," Jacobson said. They learned from GW I. Thatâs good. The Operation Iraqi Freedom pneumonia cases were geographically dispersed, came from different units, and were spread over time, the surgeon general said. Of the serious cases, two cases of them occurred in March, three in April, two in May, three in June and four in July. The Army surgeon general said no common infectious agent has been found in the cases and that there is "no evidence that any of the pneumonia cases being investigated have been caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or environmental toxins." Posted by: Steve White 2003-08-04 |
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