Saturday, September 27, 1997
Merkel teen diagnosed with hantavirus
By MARK BABINECK / Abilene Reporter-News
MERKEL -- Hantavirus has been determined as the cause of a
Merkel High School student's illness.
The condition of the student, Heath Henderson, has been upgraded
from critical to guarded, a family member said.
Heath was given experimental treatment for the hantavirus and
is expected to make a full recovery, possibly a major step toward
developing a medical protocol for the oft-fatal disease.
"The last two days, he's made some remarkable progress,"
his father, Greg Henderson, said. "I don't think they expected
him to rebound this quickly."
The junior honor student and football player is breathing on
his own and sitting up in bed talking with family members.
"He wants to be up and about but he's not ready to be
up and about," Greg Henderson said. "He's not going
to be a model patient from here on out."
Heath was admitted Sunday to University Medical Center after
he became seriously ill while visiting relatives.
After doctors determined that the boy was Texas' 11th confirmed
case of hantavirus, they received family permission to begin blowing
nitric oxide into his lungs to blunt the disease's crippling respiratory
effects.
"Within three to four hours after we began using the nitric
oxide, there was dramatic improvement in the patient's condition,"
said Dr. Michael Romano, part of the pediatric critical care team
that attended to the boy.
Before turning to nitric oxide, typically used to treat high
blood pressure, doctors watched the boy's pneumonia deteriorate
rapidly Monday morning despite being fed nearly pure oxygen.
"It was a last-ditch effort," said Dr. David Waagner,
who made the hantavirus diagnosis later confirmed by the state
Department of Health. Tissue samples have been sent to a New Mexico
lab to double-check the diagnosis.
The boy was the first patient in Dr. Robert Rosenberg's nitric
oxide study, one of a handful of similar investigations around
the country.
Romano said the boy's sister was a nursing student who called
around to regional emergency rooms last weekend to find out who
was staffing them.
"He might have been suffering symptoms for a week before
they brought him in," Romano said, adding that the boy could
return home next week.
Dr. Joel Kupersmith, dean of Tech's medical school, stressed
that the nitric oxide treatment isn't a hantavirus cure, but merely
a therapy to allow patients to live through a critical two- to
three-day window and fight the virus themselves.
"Someday we will have a cure for this, or a vaccine,"
he said. "For now, what we need is this kind of team, together
with all the technological devices we have in the intensive care
unit."
Since the first United States outbreak in 1993, around 180
hantavirus cases have been confirmed in the United States. Argentina,
Chile, Brazil and Uruguay also are susceptible.
Rodent waste, particularly that from deer mice, seems to be
the main carrier, though some human-to-human transmission has
occurred in South America.
The first confirmed stateside hantavirus outbreak occurred
in 1993 in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah
and Arizona.
Eleven people died in the initial outbreak from the disease,
which is thought to be transmitted by airborne particles of rodent
waste.
Dr. James Wright of the Texas Department of Health said studies
show between 3 percent and 8 percent of deer mice in the state
carry the virus.
"We've interviewed the parents and one of our veterinarians
is talking with people today," said Wright, who heads the
TDH program that monitors animal-to-human diseases, such as rabies
and anthrax. "We plan to go to Merkel and do some (mouse)
trapping next week. Obviously, we've got the virus somewhere."
Doctors added that transfer of the disease is rare, even in
an infested area, and there's no cause for a scare in Merkel or
anywhere else the disease is found.
Attending physicians said they intend to submit their treatment
protocol for peer review. They emphasized that this was a one-time
incident, not a well-rounded study of the procedure.
-----
A recent hantavirus case in Taylor County does not mean there's
an epidemic of the rodent-borne disease, a Texas Department of
Health official said Friday.
"This is not spread person-to-person," said Julie
Rawlings, an epidemiologist for the department.
"There is no need to fear contact with an infected individual,"
she said. "The virus is carried by certain types of rats
and mice. Humans become infected by exposure to rodent droppings,
urine or saliva."
To prevent exposure, she said, people should stay away from
rodents and their nests and not touch rodents, their droppings
or urine with bare hands.
If you find a dead rodent, she said, take the following steps
to dispose of it:
-- Spray a flea-killing insecticide on the area immediately
surrounding the dead rodent.
-- Wearing rubber or disposable gloves, pour a disinfectant
on the rodent and any droppings or nest materials.
-- Place the rodent and materials, including all items used
in the cleanup, in a plastic bag and tie the opening.
-- Place the bag inside a second plastic bag, tie the opening
and dispose of everything in an outdoor garbage can.
A 16-year-old Merkel boy, Heath Henderson, became Texas' 11th
confirmed case of hantavirus this week. A health department team
will be trapping rodents next week at sites where he might have
been exposed, Rawlings said.
Staff Writer John Starbuck contributed to this story.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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