Mystery wave of Pneumonia hits AMERICA: Ohio county records 142 child cases of 'white lung syndrome' which it says 'meets the definition of an outbreak' - as China and Europe grapple with crises
An 'extremely high' number of children are being diagnosed with
pneumonia in
Ohio — which is now the first US state to report an outbreak
like the one in China.
Health officials in Warren County, 30 miles north of Cincinnati, said there have been 142 pediatric cases of the condition — dubbed 'white lung syndrome' — since August.
'Not only is this above the county average, it also meets the Ohio Department of Health definition of an outbreak,' the county's health department said Wednesday.
The spread of cases has raised fears that an American outbreak of the infection that has overwhelmed hospitals
China could hit this winter. Several
European countries are battling similar crises.
But a source at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (
CDC) said that, nationally, 'nothing is out of the ordinary'.
An 'ongoing investigation' is underway in Ohio into what is triggering the wave of illness, but officials do not think it is a new respiratory disease — and instead blame a mixture of several common infections all hitting at once.
Dr John Kelley, from western Massachusetts, said his practice was seeing a lot of children coming in with pneumonia or suffering from a combination of RSV and other respiratory illnesses.
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