International No clues to killer illness

Press, 6 August 1976, Page 5

International No clues to killer illness

NZPA-Reuter

Philadelphia

The medical mystery over the killer disease, now known as “Philadelphia fever.” has deepened.

The dreaded swine ’flu has become a less likely cause, and bacteria have been eliminated from the list of possible causes of the illness that has killed 22 persons and sent scores more to hospital. Scientists have zeroed in on viral diseases, fungustype ailments, and toxic chemicals as potential sources of the outbreak that struck , delegates to an American Legion ex-service-men’s convention with alarming suddenness after a meeting in Philadelphia two weeks ago. There was hope the first laboratory tests to detect viruses in tissue samples from patients might produce some results yesterday at the Federal Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, or state laboratories in Philadelphia.

j; But Dr David Sencer, I /director of the C.D.C., said! a it might take scientists a] " week or more to find the 1 agent responsible. Even then ‘'they might fail ‘ “It is possible we will ■ never find out what caused it,” he said, “It may be one. of those one-time illnesses! ■ithat strike occasionally.” -I Doctors' have been interI viewing all those ill with tithe disease. I The symptoms are thosej ■jof severe influenza, but doc-[ 1 1tors said flu viruses were I highly contagious, and so far: ’[there had been no evidence that the ailment had spread II beyond those linked with the -’Convention. i; Dr Sencer said that ?i laboratory technicians work--Hng around the clock had -■found nothing of a bacterial r; nature. He also ruled out - diseases carried by food and ‘water. 1

I Among the diseases elimiInated were bubonic plague, I typhoid fever, whooping ■cough. chorio-meningitis, ; tularemia, and psittacosis, commonly known as parrot fever. ( The last is spread by ■ birds, and had been ranked I high by some doctors speculating on the cause of the I ailment. Dr Gary Lattimer, ■ specialist in infectious diseases at the Allentown genleral hospital, was convinced !ir was parrot fever because I the clinical symptoms of the : victims best fitted the disease. The outbreak' is having ramifications across the United States. Reports of illnesses with similar symptoms have popped up in New Jersey, Delaware, and California, but the authorities said there was no evidence they were linked to! the Pennsylvania case.