Hantavirus Alarms Idahoans -- Teen's Death Prompts Cdc To Send Team To Coeur D'alene

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - Health officials are working to calm fears about hantavirus, confirmed as the cause of a northern-Idaho teenager's death, and to determine how the boy contracted the disease.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday confirmed preliminary conclusions that the rodent-borne virus caused the Oct. 14 death of Dyne Phillip, 14.

The Atlanta-based CDC will send a team of doctors to Coeur d'Alene in the next few weeks to try to determine the source of Phillip's illness, said Jan Palmer, a nurse epidemiologist at the Panhandle Health District.

"The CDC confirmation is perplexing and sad," said Jeanne Bock, the district's director of physical health. "We're still hopeful Dyne's death was an isolated set of circumstances that came together."

"I wouldn't want people to think exposure is some sort of death sentence for anybody around a mouse," said Dr. Paul Stepak, epidemiologist for the Spokane County, Wash., Health District. "It's not that extreme."

Stepak said his phone was "ringing off the wall" after media reports about Phillip's death in a Spokane hospital.

"I've done nothing but answer phone calls from everyone who has a mouse in their closet," he said.

The CDC confirmation did little to broaden health officials' understanding of how Phillip picked up the virus, which emerged from obscurity last spring when it was blamed for deaths in the Southwest's Four Corners area, which is composed of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.

"We know nothing more than we did a few days ago," Palmer said. "What I want now is absolute confirmation that the disease came from here."

Phillip's mother, Janice Geary, said last week her son had not left the area during the virus' 45-day incubation period, leading to speculation that he was infected in the Coeur d'Alene area.

A respiratory disease that strikes with terrifying swiftness, the hantavirus so far has sickened at least 50 people in 14 states, killing 30.

The virus is carried by deer mice, common in Idaho and many other states. It is spread through the blood, urine, feces and saliva of the mice, and is often breathed in by people sweeping deer-mice droppings.

Two other cases of hantavirus have been reported in southern Idaho. Doctors believe one patient became infected in New Mexico and the other in Utah.

Palmer and Bock said people should not be overly alarmed.

"The circumstances of this case are out of the ordinary," Bock said. "The incubation period of this illness is 45 days, and we have had no other cases that we know of."

Palmer said Phillip may not have been the first person in northern Idaho to die of hantavirus.

"The disease is so classic. Until now, the cause of death has been listed as adult respiratory distress syndrome," she said.

People should attempt to keep deer mice out of their homes by sealing holes in foundations and taking other precautions, Palmer said.

"It's pricey, but it's essential," she said. "This virus is more than 50 percent fatal."