Could Alabama's Mystery Illness Be a Coincidence?

A mysterious respiratory illness that has caused seven people in Alabama to fall ill and killed two of them could be a coincidence, as it is unclear whether the patients or their symptoms are connected, according to the state Health Department, ABC News reports.

"At this time, there is no epidemiological link between these patients," said a recent Alabama health department document. The patients, who range in age from their mid-20's to their late 80's, had no other commonalities other than the "majority" of them having "co-morbidities like smoking, COPD morbid obesity" and location, said Dr. Mary McIntyre, who is leading the investigation.

"When people get sick close together in time it can make it look like an outbreak is occurring," said Dr. Richard Besser, chief health and medical editor for ABC News. "Good science will tell you whether it is." 

The mystery illness began with flu-like symptoms including shortness of breath, cough and fever, but both patients who died had ended up coming down with pneumonia, Dr. McIntyre said. 

"We're only aware of the Southeast, but we don't know - we haven't received reports from anywhere else," McIntyre said, according to FOX News. "That's why we're trying to get the information out." Authorities are urging hospital staff to wear masks to protect them from potentially contagious patients with respiratory illnesses. 

Dr. Besser said most patients with pneumonia are never tested to determine the cause of their infection, but the Disease Control and Prevention could offer "state of the art" diagnostic testing to help explain these particular Alabama cases, and health officials will question the patients' families and friends to "determine common exposures and whether the patients ever had contact with one another."

One of the seven Alabama patients tested positive for H1N1, the "swine flu" that saw an epidemic in 2009, and another tested positive for the strain of influenza known as AH3, according to a health department document. The first three patients' cases were reported to the health department on May 16 as the patients were on ventilators but had no known cause for their sickness, and the most recent case was reported on May 19.

The health department document said that it is not yet clear whether the flu played a role in this "cluster of illnesses," and Dr. McIntyre said that the five patients who are still living seem to be improving and getting better, as one of them was released from the hospital on Tuesday.