Anchorage Daily News

A viral outbreak in Northwest Alaska early this month sickened nine infants younger than a month old, some so seriously they were sent to an Anchorage hospital for treatment, according to state public health authorities.

Some of the children have recovered, and the others are improving, Dr. Beth Funk, a medical epidemiologist with the state Public Health Division, said Friday.

Six of the infants were admitted to the Alaska Native Medical Center, and two were still being treated as of Friday, according to a hospital spokesman.

The babies are from several villages in the Kotzebue region and took sick during the two weeks prior to Sept. 10, according to the Public Health Division. They were a week-and-a-half old and a little older at the time, said Funk.

Two public health nurses flew to Kotzebue on Sept. 10. Several of the babies "also had meningitis and inflammation around the heart and in the heart muscle, consistent with a viral infection," the division said.

"Some of these babies were so severely ill, and because this is a pretty rare thing, doctors don't know if all the babies will fully recover or will have some long-term (effects)," Funk said.

POSSIBLY A COMMON VIRUS

No other infants were known to have the contagious illness, although a 1-year-old was also diagnosed with it. That older baby, Funk said, is the only child whose sickness was confirmed by an Outside lab as a particular strain of enterovirus.

Funk was nevertheless confident, she said, that the illness seen in the infants was the same enterovirus, although results of tests on specimens from the babies were yet to be returned to the state.

Non-polio enterovirus, as the illness is known, usually shows symptoms of fever and breathing difficulties resembling the flu. Enteroviruses, found in the mucus and stool of an infected person, are the second most frequent infectious virus after the common cold, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

An estimated 10 million to 15 million people or more become infected with the virus each year in the United States, the CDC Web site says. Most people with it have no illness. But viral meningitis and, more rarely, an illness that affects the heart or the brain can develop from it, the CDC says.

The state keeps no statistics on the occurrence of enteroviruses and so has no record on them, Funk said.

But from her experience as a public health doctor and from statements made by physicians treating the infants, the bug's outbreak in at least nine recently born babies is unusual, she said.

"This is something they haven't seen or seen very, very rarely," she said. "In the medical literature, you see (cases of) one or two babies."

CONFINED TO KOTZEBUE

The virus's incubation period is just a few days, so it's unlikely that the babies caught it from their mothers during pregnancy.

The virus does not appear to have hit infants and young kids in any other part of the state, Funk added.

Health providers intend to follow the infants who were most sick for some time "to see if all the babies return to normal or have some long-term problems," Funk said.

The most effective means of prevention, said Funk, is to wash hands thoroughly and often, especially before touching or eating food, after using the bathroom and after changing diapers. If no water is available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

Find Peter Porco online at adn.com/contact/pporco or call 257-4582.