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Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms. "If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.'' Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.

Health Officials in Ukraine say the death toll from a suspected swine flu outbreak has reached 144. Almost a million people are thought to be infected, mostly in the west of the country. ~ Over a hundred have died since the outbreak of the virus last week. But it's still unclear exactly what killed those Ukranians. Only some are confirmed as a result of AH1N1, the rest are blamed on respiratory diseases. Even so, talks over imposing a state of emergency in the country are surfacing from the highest levels. Should that happen, the upcoming presidential vote could be shifted...

2009 H1N1 Flu: Situation Update: The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) based on the 122 Cities Report was low and within the bounds of what is expected at this time of year.

MANNING, SC (WIS) - A 11-year-old Sumter girl who attended Laurence Manning Academy has died according to her family. Ashley Pipkin's family says she died while riding in an ambulance headed to Palmetto Health Richland hospital in Columbia around 2pm Wednesday. Hospital officials say Pipkin died of pneumonia from flu-like symptoms she had been suffering from. Pipkin's family adds Ashley had already visited Tuomey Medical Center in Sumter twice for the same issues. Ashley's mom, Brandi, says the 5th grader felt fine last Friday and didn't feel any symptoms until Monday when she woke up sick. Brandi says Ashley was...

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have demonstrated a more effective treatment for bacterial pneumonia following influenza. They found that the antibiotics clindamycin and azithromycin, which kill bacteria by inhibiting their protein synthesis, are more effective than a standard first-line treatment with the "beta-lactam" antibiotic ampicillin, which causes the bacteria to lyse, or burst. The finding is important because pneumonia, rather than the influenza itself, is a principal cause of death from influenza in children and the elderly. During pandemics—such as the one that may arise from avian influenza—up to 95 percent of influenza deaths are due to pneumonia....

Researchers have found out what made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly -- a group of three genes that lets the virus invade the lungs and cause pneumonia. They mixed samples of the 1918 influenza strain with modern seasonal flu viruses to find the three genes and said their study might help in the development of new flu drugs. The discovery, published in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could also point to mutations that might turn ordinary flu into a dangerous pandemic strain. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and colleagues at the...

Excerpt from this new article: "Diagnosing pneumonia is becoming an increasingly common practice in doctor’s offices everywhere..."

WASHINGTON - GlaxoSmithKline Plc's rotavirus vaccine is associated with increased pneumonia-related deaths and other adverse reactions, U.S. regulatory staff said in documents posted on Friday. The review comes ahead of a Food and Drug Administration advisory meeting next Wednesday to consider approval of the oral vaccine to prevent the most common cause of severe diarrhea and dehydration among infants and young children in the world. FDA staff said its analysis of 11 studies revealed that in the largest trial, there was a statistically significant increase in deaths related to pneumonia compared with placebo, documents posted on the FDA's Web site...

Source: Texas A&M Health Science Center Date: January 28, 2007 Bacteria In Staph Infections Can Cause Necrotizing Pneumonia Science Daily — Researchers at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences and Technology at Houston have discovered a toxin present in the bacteria responsible for the current nationwide outbreak of staph infections also has a role in an aggressive pneumonia that is often fatal within 72 hours. "The virulence of CA-MRSA (community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) strains that produce the PVL (Panton Valentine leukocidin) toxin presents a nightmare scenario," said M. Gabriela Bowden, Ph.D., research assistant professor at HSC-IBT and...

Los Angeles -- The father of a 5-year-old asthmatic girl has sued the apartment complex where the family lives in an attempt to stop residents from smoking in common areas. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Superior Court, alleges that second-hand smoke from common areas around the complex have hurt Melinda Birke's health. The areas include the swimming pools, the barbecue areas, the children's playground, the outdoor dining area and the entrances to the rental office and clubhouse. The girl has had pneumonia three times since 2003, and has suffered from asthma and chronic allergies since she was 18 months old,...

Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses - in our pillows. Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults. The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow. Fungal contamination of bedding...

Vaccine opponents, a scattered though potent force, have been gearing up in recent weeks to fight state health officials who are pushing for new immunization rules for babies and young children. This latest vaccine skirmish centers on proposals to require that young children in child care centers or preschool get vaccinated against both the flu and pneumonia. The shots would be for children over 6 months old and would include the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7), and the influenza vaccine. Health officials said the mandates, not yet final, would prevent as many as 300 hospitalizations each year -- and possibly several...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2005--Hundreds of U.S. soldiers have been infected with a potentially deadly drug resistant bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, that apparently originated in Iraqi soil, according to Forbes.com Medical & Science Writer Matthew Herper. Visit www.forbes.com for this exclusive report, "The Iraq Infection." According to Herper's report, "most of the victims are relatively young troops who were injured by the land mines, mortars and suicide bombs that have permeated the Iraq conflict." While no active duty soldiers have died from the infection, five deaths did occur among extremely sick patients who were in the same hospitals as the injured...

Whooping Cough Outbreak Communities throughout the U.S. are experiencing whooping cough (pertussis) outbreaks - the worst in 40 years. If the school nurse or the health department informs you that there is a pertussis outbreak in your school or community, you may need to call your pediatrician. The school or health department will tell you if your child was directly exposed and requires antibiotics. Health departments across the country are acting quickly to prevent the spread of pertussis, so your cooperation in contacting your pediatrician is crucial. Please follow the instruction of the health department. The care of children in...

A SUPERFIT Royal Marine collapsed and died within days of scratching his leg on a bush while on a training run — victim of a mutated superbug one doctor described as the worst she had ever seen. Richard Campbell-Smith, 18, fell victim to pneumonia caused by a rare strain of bacteria that produces a lethal toxin that kills white blood cells. A microbiologist who gave evidence at the inquest into his death yesterday said that she had come across two such cases since December but none in the previous 15 years. Marina Morgan, of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital,...

Terri's Last Chance It's time to try giving Terri Schiavo orally administered liquids. by William Anderson 03/23/2005 12:45:00 PM THE CHIPS ARE DOWN. We have had a surfeit of due process. It is now well past time to consider the facts which process has willfully ignored. There is no reason, medical, moral, or legal, to refrain from an attempt to provide Terri Schiavo with orally administered liquids. There are only two possible explanations for having employed gastric tube feeding. Either (1) her neurologic damage has brought about a swallowing dysfunction with danger of aspiration pneumonia; or (2) it was simply...

My son, Henry, was admitted to the ICU a week ago with Strep Pneumonia. He's had a very rough go of things - Saturday was particulalry bad for him. I thought we were going to lose him. He's two years old and has already had open-heart surgery. He's been riding a real roller coaster and has almost no room to get worse.

LOS ANGELES — Actress Nicole DeHuff (search), who memorably took a volleyball in the face from Ben Stiller in the 2000 hit movie "Meet the Parents" (search), died of complications from pneumonia. She was 31. DeHuff had twice visited a hospital shortly before her death Feb. 16 but was sent home both times, the E! Network's E! Online Web site reported Friday.Read the full article at FoxNews.com

Keith Knudsen, a drummer for the Doobie Brothers since 1974, died of pneumonia Tuesday. He was 56. Knudsen, who lived in Sonoma County's wine country, had been hospitalized for more than a month. He died at Kentfield Rehabilitation Hospital at about 12:30 p.m., according to the band's longtime manager Bruce Cohn. "I just saw him Sunday, just before the Super Bowl," Cohn said. "He was in good spirits. He was weak, but he was OK." Knudsen, who said he began drumming in eighth grade, joined the classic rock band in 1974 after he met Cohn, who told him the Doobies...

The federal government is now telling patients whether their local hospitals are doing what they should. For now, the effort involves three common and deadly afflictions of the elderly - heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia - and asks about lifesaving treatments that everyone agrees should be given but that hospitals and doctors often forget to give. The expectation, though, is that this is just the beginning; other diseases, other treatments and surgery are next. Within a few years, individual doctors will be rated as well. Using incentives like bonus pay and deterrents like public humiliation, it is a bold...

CHICAGO, Dec 21 (Reuters) - A rare and sometimes deadly pneumonia has hit 18 U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq, and Army medical investigators are at a loss to explain the cause, according to a study published on Tuesday. In a report appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said two of the soldiers had died from the rare illness, called acute eosinophilic pneumonia, or AEP. No common source was found for the outbreak that occurred between March 2003 and March 2004 among the soldiers in Iraq. The study covered only...

Scientists have found a ''molecular Achilles heel'' in the organism that causes pneumonia, providing a target for the development of a new class of antibiotics that could eventually eradicate the disease. ''Streptococcus pneumoniae places an enormous burden on the welfare of humanity,'' says Thomas Leyh, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and lead author of the paper. ''Worldwide, the organism takes the lives of some 3,700 people daily, the majority of whom are children below the age of five.'' From American Chemical Society: New antibiotic target could mean the end of...

SARS virus may spread via sweat, food, sewage, touch: study Thu May 6, 2004 15:11:03 ETThe SARS virus has been found in sweat glands and the intestine, according to a new study, which says that in theory the disease may spread via contaminated sewage, food or even a handshake, not just by airborne droplets. Pathologists from the First Military Medical University in Guangzhou, southern China, warn that if further research proves that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) can be transmitted by these unexpected routes, the implications for public health are major. The results were remarkable, according to their study, which...

I've never asked for prayers on FR before. I'm really a bit nervous, so here goes. My 70 year old grandmother was hospitalized yesterday with pneumonia. She's in fair condition, but she's a small woman who has a history of emphyzema, so I'm worried for her. I ask that you keep her in your prayers. Thanks.

I got this FReepmail from kayak: Forwarding it for everyone: Mo1's mother has passed away From kayak | 12/23/2003 11:10:05 PM PST replied Mo1 lost her mother Tuesday afternoon. She had had the flu and it went into pneumonia. She posted the message in #183 on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1045019/posts?q=1&&page=1 (which is the Dose for 12/22/03). May you and your family have a very blessed Christmas and may God bless you and keep you!

Flu isn't a spending priority By Seth Borenstein Knight Ridder Newspapers December 22, 2003 WASHINGTON - The flu kills 36,000 Americans a year, but the federal government spends only about half as much money on research to fight it as it spends to attack boll weevils, which are cotton pests. Other diseases that grab headlines or have advocacy groups or celebrity spokespeople - such as AIDS, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease - kill far fewer people than the inseparable duo of influenza and pneumonia. But the National Institutes of Health spends between eight and 100 times more money researching those more...

Colombia: Outbreak of Undiagnosed Severe Respiratory Disease -------------------------------------------------- From 25 Sep to 28 Nov 2003, 38 cases of a severe acute respiratory disease have been reported to the Colombian National Institute of Health (INS). The illness develops in a range of 10 to 7 days. The disease begins with high respiratory symptoms and fever, cough (with or without expectoration), dyspnea, headache, asthenia, and/or adynamia. Diarrhea, vomit or intense thoracic pain can also be present. Chest x-rays show interstitial and alveolar infiltrates. This illness has resulted in 13 deaths. Information coming from health care providers of National Institutions indicates an increase...

Cats 'can catch and pass on Sars' Medical researchers have found cats can catch Sars and pass it on to other animals. A team of US scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston say the finding raises the question of whether cats can pass the virus to humans. Researcher Dr Robert Shope, an expert on emerging diseases, said: "You might want to quarantine the pets as well as the people. If it's been shown that the virus can transmit from cat to cat, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith that it will transmit to...

Lt. Col. Janice M. Rusnak, recently arrived at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, for a tour as infectious-diseases specialist, walked into the third-floor intensive care unit. She didn't know the name of the patient she wanted to see. But she had what she considered a fairly good description. Can you point me to the soldier from Iraq who's on a ventilator? she asked a nurse. The one with acute respiratory distress syndrome.What's clear so far is this: Since early March, about 100 soldiers deployed to the Persian Gulf region and Central Asia have contracted pneumonia. About 30 have...

Thu September 11, 2003 06:34 PM ET By Paul Simao ATLANTA (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Thursday it did not know what had caused an outbreak of a severe type of pneumonia that killed two soldiers serving in Iraq and caused 17 on duty in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to be hospitalized. The illnesses, which were reported in a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, occurred between March and August in a group of full-time active duty personnel and reservists deployed in Iraq, Kuwait, Djibouti, Qatar and Uzbekistan....

Most of the soldiers in and around Iraq with unexplained, severe pneumonia had taken up smoking shortly before falling ill, military medical authorities said Tuesday. The military is investigating 19 cases of severe pneumonia since March, including two fatalities. Four of those cases were linked to bacterial infections. Of the remaining 15, 10 patients, including the two who died, had elevated levels of a certain type of white blood cells. Nine of the 10 reported they had started smoking recently, said Col. Bob DeFraites, a top Army medical officer. It's unclear whether smoking caused or contributed to the pneumonia, but...

WASHINGTON - Most of the soldiers in and around Iraq with unexplained, severe pneumonia had taken up smoking shortly before falling ill, military medical authorities said Tuesday. The military is investigating 19 cases of severe pneumonia since March, including two fatalities. Four of those cases were linked to bacterial infections. Of the remaining 15, 10 patients, including the two who died, had elevated levels of a certain type of white blood cells. Nine of the 10 reported they had started smoking recently, said Col. Bob DeFraites, a top Army medical officer. It's unclear whether smoking caused or contributed to the...

Army medical teams are investigating why some service members who became infected with pneumonia in Southwest Asia had signs of Eosinophilla and others didn’t. Of the 19 serious cases diagnosed since March 1, 17 were soldiers. One Marine and sailor have also been diagnosed. Only one woman has been diagnosed with serious pneumonia. Eosinophils are white blood cells known to fight certain infections, especially hay fever and allergies, a press release from the U.S. Army Surgeon General's office said. Concerned about the number of cases, the surgeon general sent two Epidemiological Consultation teams to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, and...

A PATIENT at the Singapore General Hospital tested positive for the Sars virus on Monday, triggering concern that the respiratory disease may have resurfaced here. Hospital staff asked visitors to leave wards 74 and 78 in the late afternoon. The Straits Times learnt that more tests were done on the Singaporean man to confirm if the preliminary test result was correct, or if it was a false positive. He worked in a virology laboratory at Kent Ridge, but apparently was not working with the Sars virus. A Health Ministry spokesman said that Acting Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will hold...

<p>A new surveillance system and improved tests are in place in case SARS re-emerges in the United States this fall, federal health officials said. Officials of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking Wednesday evening at a monthly meeting of researchers, said they don't know if SARS will reappear this fall or winter, but they believe the virus easily could return.</p>

Hospitals have been placed on high alert over a mystery disease that has killed three people. Two died within an hour of collapsing. Health authorities said last night that they were startled at the sudden deaths of two women and a man in Dunedin and were "very concerned" that the disease killed so quickly. They issued a nationwide alert, mostly to warn hospitals to watch out for symptoms but also to find out whether the disease had spread beyond Dunedin. At a press conference last night, they ruled out Sars as a cause but said they had no idea what...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- The father of a soldier who died of pneumonia this spring said Thursday the Army has excluded her death from its investigation of deadly pneumonia because it wants to cover up vaccine side effects. "The government is covering this up and it is a dog-gone shame," said Moses Lacy, whose daughter, Army Spc. Rachael Lacy, died April 4 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after getting pneumonia. Lacy said his daughter "was a healthy young woman" but got ill within days of getting anthrax and smallpox vaccinations on March 2 in preparation for deployment...

THE Pentagon admitted yesterday that it could not explain a deadly spate of pneumonia among US troops serving in the Middle East. About 100 US soldiers, mostly in Iraq, have contracted the illness. Two had died and another 15 became seriously ill, requiring the support of a ventilator. The US Army dispatched two investigative medical teams last week to Iraq and Germany -- where many of the infected troops have been treated -- but tried yesterday to talk down the possibility of biological weapons or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome being involved. ``Based on all the information we have to date,...

Is the anthrax vaccine behind the recent surge in pneumonia cases among active-duty American troops, including two which led to the deaths of soldiers serving in Iraq? One medical professor thinks the United States Army should and will consider that question in its investigation. "As physicians, I would think they would be looking at all possible causes. I would think vaccines would be part of that," Dr. John Sever of George Washington University Medical School told United Press International. Sever was one of six authors of a government-sponsored study published in May 2002 that found the vaccine was the "possible...

<p>The Army will consider whether the anthrax or other vaccines could be causing a cluster of pneumonia cases among soldiers in Iraq and southwestern Asia, an official said yesterday.</p> <p>Col. Robert DeFraites of the Army Surgeon General's Office told United Press International that the Pentagon would look into whether vaccines, among other factors, might have triggered the pneumonia that has killed two soldiers and sickened 100.</p>

The United States Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a serious outbreak of pneumonia among US troops, with two dead and more than 100 ill. Lieutenant-General James Peake, the army's surgeon general, has sent a team of six to Iraq and two more doctors to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq, officials said on Friday. Army Medical Command spokeswoman Lyn Kukral said: "It is pneumonia. The question is: what is the cause?" "You've got a healthy population and a young population [of...

The US Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among its troops. Military officials say two soldiers have died of the pneumonia and more than 100 are ill. Army medical authorities say they are concerned because the pneumonia is attacking healthy, young soldiers, which means it is likely to be a virulent strain. Authorities say there is no evidence of chemical, biological, or environmental toxins involved in the troops' illness, and SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] has also been ruled out. See also http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/956369/posts

Mystery illness kills Missouri soldierJosh Neusche died Saturday; his family waits for answers.By Eric EckertNews-Leader Staff July 16, 2003   Montreal, Mo. &#8212; Seventeen-year-old Jacob Neusche spent Tuesday morning packing up his big brother's belongings &#8212; books, a high school letterman's jacket and a Class A uniform.  "That's what Josh will be buried in," the teenager said, referring to the uniform.   Missouri National Guard Spc. Josh Neusche, 20, died Saturday at the Homburg Hospital in Germany from a mysterious illness. A member of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, he is the only Missouri National Guardsman on the Department of Defense's...

Holy cow. Thanks for all the care, concern, and prayers, my friends!I'm back home with a walker and a cane, and doin' the exercises I have to do to get back in shape. Hell, the only exercise I used to get was coughing.It was a garden-variety pneumonia that damn near killed me (40% chance of survival were the odds I was given), but how I got it is the story. After a long day of loading a truck with furniture stuff in South Bend, I went to a local eatery (they'll be named in the lawsuit) and had half a...

SPOKANE - A Spokane man who ministered to jail inmates and homeless people has been ruled the victim of a bizarre homicide involving hydrochloric acid. Richard "Dick" Cross, 63, died May 6 after a long struggle with health problems linked to hydrochloric acid that was poured onto the seat of his car last fall. Cross was driving to an appointment when he noticed severe burning on the back of his legs, buttocks and lower back. The acid caused second- and third-degree burns, and Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken late last week listed the manner of death as homicide....

As the elderly population increases, the death toll from these two illnesses could soar, experts fear. Statistical analyses by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) show that during the 1990s, the flu killed an average of 36,000 people each year, up from previous estimates of 20,000. That's just an average, CDC flu expert Keiji Fukuda says. Deaths vary dramatically from year to year, from very few to as many as 70,000, he says. In addition, researchers say, 11,000 people, about 78% of them 65 and older, die each year from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV....

Booker: ‘I thought I was going to die’ by Phil Speer CHARLOTTE, N.C. – May 18, 2003 -- Booker T isn’t 100 percent yet, but he says he’s well on his way to recovering from pneumonia. The five-time WCW Champion became violently ill on May 10, and had to be rushed to the hospital late that night. Booker -- who wrestles in the Intercontinental Title Battle Royal today, his first in-ring action since becoming ill – says he’s never been that sick in his life. “I thought I was going to die actually, because I’ve never really felt like that...

LOS ANGELES, May 9, 2003 -- Chances that a proposed drug for use against SARS will prove effective against the deadly pneumonia epidemic were sharply improved by findings that only insignificant mutations are occurring in the cornoavirus identified as its cause, according to a respected British medical journal, making it a stable target for rapidly-produced "antisense" drugs that prime the immune system to prepare it for the SARS virus and then attack it when the victim is infected. Corvallis, Ore.-based AVI BioPharma CEO Dennis Burger told Congress in sworn testimony May 7 that he believes a compound newly created by...

INFORMATION LINKS:United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention World Health Organization (WHO) International Society for Infectious Diseases (ProMed)SARS Info Centerper loin’s Charts and Graphs FREE REPUBLIC THREADS: November 10, 2001 1. Colorado Governor Orders Post Office Shut Down After Employee Hospitalized for PneumoniaNovember 21, 2001 2. Odd Pneumonia in SverdlovskFebruary 12, 2003 3. Fear spreads in China over mystery lung virus March 10 – 16 4. Precognition (Mother Abigail) 5. First Known Case of Atypical Pneumonia in Europe Quarantined in Frankfurt (with 155 passengers) 6. UN Warns of Worldwide Threat from Killer Pneumonia 7. UN warns of worldwide threat...

MORE ON THE SARS SCAM IN CANADA, CHINA, AUSTRALIA April 25. Let's start here: the list of SARS symptoms is indistinguishable from the symptoms of ordinary pneumonias and flu. That's right. If you took two people---one who had been diagnosed with SARS and one who had some regular pneumonia or flu---you would not be able to eyeball the difference. I know that people don't want to believe this, but they also don't want to believe that a stock they just bought is worthless junk that is heading into the toilet. Sometimes you have to see the facts before the facts...