XPost: alt.health, sac.politics, alt.politics.usa   
   XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities   
   From: utopia@democrats.com   
      
   The illness appears to almost uniquely target children   
      
   Just as schools usher in a new group of students, plus all of   
   their germs, hundreds of children in Denver have come down with   
   an unusual and severe respiratory illness that has ailed   
   communities across the U.S. in recent weeks.   
      
   Officials at Children’s Hospital Colorado told the Denver Post   
   that the hospital has treated more than 900 children for the   
   illness since Aug. 18. Similar outbreaks have been reported in   
   geographic clusters around the Midwest this summer, including in   
   St. Louis.   
      
   Health officials believe that the sickness is related to a rare   
   virus called human enterovirus 68 (HEV68), the Post says. HEV68,   
   first seen in California in 1962, and an unwelcome but highly   
   infrequent visitor to communities worldwide since then, is a   
   relative of the virus linked to the common cold (human   
   rhinoviruses, or HRV), according to the Centers for Disease   
   Control and Prevention.   
      
   HEV68, which almost uniquely affects children, tends to first   
   cause cold-like symptoms, including body aches, sneezing and   
   coughing. These mild complaints then worsen into life-   
   threatening breathing problems that are all the more dangerous   
   to children with asthma. Since viruses do not respond to   
   antibiotics, hospitals have treated the illness with asthma   
   therapies.   
      
   Although extremely unpleasant, no deaths have so far been   
   reported from this summer’s outbreak.   
      
   There is no vaccine for HEV68, and health officials are   
   encouraging the same practices that guard against the common   
   cold: keep your hands to yourself, and wash them often.   
      
   http://time.com/3296579/hundreds-of-children-stricken-by-rare-   
   respiratory-illness-in-colorado/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)