Outbreak

A recent outbreak of viral meningitis in Montgomery County means that Bucks County residents should be more careful but should not be gripped with fear, said Dr. Lewis D. Polk, director of the Bucks County Health Department. "I don't think it's justified to have panic in the streets," Polk said. "The kind that we're having here apparently is not the kind that kills you and not the kind that causes serious problems. Other kinds can. " The state health department issued a public warning Wednesday after confirming about 150 cases of meningitis in Berks, Dauphin, Delaware, Montgomery and York Counties since mid-June.

You can officially add the outbreak of Trojan Measles to the lore of the USC-UCLA football bash. While some Los Angeles health officials were suggesting that Saturday's game should be postponed because Rodney Peete could transmit measles to everyone in attendance in the Rose Bowl, USC's senior quarterback instead gave the 100,741 in the stands and a national television audience a dose of Heismanitis by leading the second-ranked Trojans to a...

WASHINGTON - An outbreak of bacterial infections on the East Coast illustrates the popularity of raw, unpasteurized milk despite strong warnings from public health officials about the potential danger. Even presidential candidate Ron Paul has joined the cause of consumers looking to buy unprocessed "real foods" straight from the farm, saying government shouldn't deny them that choice. An outbreak of campylobacter illness is a reminder of the potential hazards, however. Raw milk from a dairy in Chambersburg, Pa., is now linked to 38 cases in four states, and the farm has temporarily suspended sales.

BERLIN - A large and unprecedented outbreak of bacterial infections linked to contaminated vegetables claimed two more lives in Europe on Tuesday, driving the death toll to 16. The number of sick rose to more than 1,150 people in at least eight nations. Nearly 400 people in Germany were battling a potentially fatal version of the infection that attacks the kidneys and kills up to 5 percent of patients. A U.S. expert said doctors had never seen so many cases of the condition, hemolytic uremic syndrome, tied to a foodborne outbreak.

A 14th death in the Philadelphia area since December has been attributed to the sometimes-fatal disease listeriosis, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said yesterday. Dr. Benjamin Schwartz said, however, that he thought it was "unlikely" that the local outbreak would claim any more deaths. "Virtually every" hospital in the area already has been canvassed, he said. Schwartz said the 14th death occurred in February but was diagnosed as listeriosis yesterday.

An outbreak of the deadly AIDS virus among several dozen young children in a southern Russian city has caused panic among local residents, some of whom wanted to burn down the homes of those who had been infected, Soviet officials disclosed yesterday. Since the outbreak was first reported in January, 49 people - 41 of them children - have contracted the AIDS-causing HIV virus in the city of Elista, in the Russian Republic near the Caspian Sea, Deputy Health Minister Alexander Kondrusev said at a news conference.

Camden's schools superintendent, Dr. Arnold Webster, said last night that an outbreak of hepatitis type A among four Camden students last week had not spread and was under control. He said the outbreak was reported about a week ago at Lanning Square and Yorkshire Elementary Schools, after parents of the four students took the ill children to local health clinics. The disease has flulike symptoms and causes a yellow discoloration of body tissues and fluids. Webster said that the students who contracted the disease had been staying at the Anna Samples Home, a shelter for the homeless that is operated by the Volunteers of America.

An outbreak of measles in Gloucester County has public health officials scrambling to contain the contagious disease. Since March, 84 measles cases have been reported in the county; 24 have been confirmed, health officials said. No deaths have been reported, but 22 people have been hospitalized, including three in the last week. Last week, 375 students and faculty at Paulsboro High School received immunization shots after a third case was confirmed at the school. Three other schools - including Woodbury and Deptford high schools - each have two confirmed cases, but a third is needed before health officials immunize students and staff at a school.

Sixteen cases of chancroid, a rare and contagious sexually transmitted disease, have been reported in Southeastern Pennsylvania since November, according to the state Department of Health. Denise Johnson, assistant program director in the division of sexually transmitted diseases, said yesterday that the cases had been limited to Chester and Berks Counties. "It's considered an outbreak because we just don't see much chancroid around," Johnson said. She said that in 1983 a total of 847 cases were reported in the United States, with most of them in New York, Georgia, Florida and California.

Stephen Minnis, an Air Force veteran from Montgomery County who's been violently sick for the last 12 days, yesterday blamed a Taco Bell chicken quesadilla and chalupa in one of the first lawsuits filed in the nationwide E. coli outbreak linked to the fast-food chain. The toll from the still-spreading outbreak left at least 63 people confirmed ill from the bacteria in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and two other states yesterday as investigators focused on green onions from a Southern California farm that were washed, chopped, bagged and boxed in South Jersey, destined for Taco Bell restaurants.

It's been an abnormally mild flu season so far, but norovirus is running at a perfectly and unpleasantly normal pace. A current outbreak at Philadelphia Protestant Home is just one of 15 this season at long-term care facilities in Philadelphia and eight in Bucks County (plus a hospital and a school), along with a sizable cluster at Princeton University that peaked on Valentine's Day - an interesting coincidence for a bug that can spread through touching. Because it can move quickly through institutions, norovirus gets plenty of attention from the medical community.

Eleven more Rider University students were treated at Trenton-area hospitals overnight Thursday, bringing the total of those who have fallen ill to 55, officials at the New Jersey school said Friday morning. Spokesman Brian Higgins said almost all the students who were taken to three local hospitals from Wednesday into Thursday were treated and released within hours. Only one required a full night's stay. School officials believe the norovirus - the same virus blamed for recent mass outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on cruise ships - is responsible.

WASHINGTON - An outbreak of bacterial infections on the East Coast illustrates the popularity of raw, unpasteurized milk despite strong warnings from public health officials about the potential danger. Even presidential candidate Ron Paul has joined the cause of consumers looking to buy unprocessed "real foods" straight from the farm, saying government shouldn't deny them that choice. An outbreak of campylobacter illness is a reminder of the potential hazards, however. Raw milk from a dairy in Chambersburg, Pa., is now linked to 38 cases in four states, and the farm has temporarily suspended sales.

Two cases of pertussis, popularly known as whooping cough, have been reported at Hillsdale Elementary School in West Chester, prompting officials to bar any students or staff who have not been vaccinated against the disease from entering the building. The West Chester Area School District says the Chester County Health Department confirmed the second case Tuesday, qualifying it as an "outbreak" at the site. Superintendent Jim Scanlon said in a statement on the district's website that officials "have identified the Hillsdale students who were not vaccinated and will be working with the Department of Health to provide those vaccinations" that will allow them to return to school.

In late August, Charles Palmer ate cantaloupe bought at a Wal-Mart store in Colorado. Two weeks later, he began feeling sick, then became unresponsive and was rushed to a hospital where doctors diagnosed a listeria infection. Now the 71-year-old retired Marine isn't just suing Granada, Colo.-based Jensen Farms, which grew the tainted cantaloupe that he says sickened him. He's also suing Wal-Mart for selling the fruit. Fallout from the outbreak that has killed 29 Americans is broadening to other major retailers that sold the tainted produce and is spurring a national debate on the role groceries and stores should play in making the food-supply chain safe.

A weekly report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that a Montgomery County nursing home had an outbreak of invasive group A streptococcus, a life-threatening bacterial infection, that it termed "one of the largest and most prolonged" such outbreaks in a nursing facility. The center's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report said that between Oct. 12, 2009, and Sept. 22, 2010, 13 residents of the facility had the invasive strep, and two died.

Wegmans is recalling all of the Turkish pine nuts it sold from its bulk food department from July 1 through October 18. The store says the nuts may be contaminated with Salmonella, a bacteria that can cause diarrheal illness. Store officials say the recall amounts to about 5,000 pounds of the nuts sold in the bulk food departments of of most Wegmans stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland between July 1 and October 18, 2011. The bottled pine nuts Wegmans sells in its grocery department are not part of the recall.

WASHINGTON - Pools of water on the floor and old, hard-to-clean equipment at a Colorado farm's cantaloupe-packing facility were probably to blame for the deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness in 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Government investigators found positive samples of listeria bacteria on equipment in the Jensen Farms packing facility and on fruit that had been held there. In a six-page assessment of the conditions at the farm based on investigators' visits in September, the FDA said Jensen Farms had recently purchased used equipment that was corroded, dirty and hard to clean.