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PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. - A deadly outbreak of flu appears to have killed three people in Calvert County,

I saw this story posted several places this morning. Pretty worrisome, if you ask me. I hope it turns out to be something more than just the flu and a possible staph infection. I also simply don't believe when they say it was likely confined to the house. That is certainly not true. And if that other sibling dies, that's 100% of the known infected. Sorry to sound like chicken little.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/03/06/mystery-illness-kills-three-in-maryland-family/

Mar 6, 2012 4:25pmMystery Illness Kills Three in Maryland Family

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Although few details are available about the illness, infectious disease specialists speculate there could be a number of causes.

“The first thing that comes to mind is influenza. It can be devastating and make people very ill,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “But when they’re a cluster like this, we have to wonder if it may be a mutant strain of flu virus. There’s been some concern about a swine flu variant.”

Pneumonia is also a possibility, as is Legionnaires’ disease.

“Legionnaires’ could cluster, and that would implicate perhaps something about this home environment,” Schaffner added. “Bacteria like moisture, so there would need to be an investigation of the heating and air conditioning systems.”

There could also be other environmental causes, such as a toxin, or even carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dr. Gio Baracco, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, speculated, based on the very limited amount of information available, that the cause is non-infectious and could be something envirnonmental.

“The reason is that for most infections, transmission rate is not 100 percent and the fatality rate is not 100 percent,” he said. If the woman’s hospitalized daughter dies, the case fatality rate will be 100 percent, he explained.

“The fact that they’re in the same household and they’re not seeing the same thing going on in the community is unusual,” he added.