Infected

Malaria-infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited Montgomery County island in the Potomac River that is a state wildlife refuge, the second time this month that infected mosquitoes have been found on an uninhabited county island. Montgomery County health officials said the mosquitoes were discovered in one of 10 traps on Van Deventer Island, a small tract just south of the site on Selden Island where malaria-infected mosquitoes were discovered last week. Lynn Frank, chief of public health services for Montgomery County, said the mosquitoes were trapped Thursday and tested Friday by researchers from the Bethesda-based Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Frostburg State's offense has been paced by the attack of junior Ryan Serio (Chesapeake-AA), sophomore Devin Colegrove (Dulaney) and freshman Spenser Love (Winters Mill), which has combined for 67 of the team's 150 goals and 44 of the 97 assists. And sophomore midfielder Chris Rios (14 goals and 18 assists) has also been instrumental. The unit has also been buoyed by the return of junior midfielders Devon Stailey and Lucas Flaig. Stailey has registered 10 goals and three assists while missing the first four games of the season due to a serious blood infection.

WASHINGTON -- A federal investigation has found that three patients of a Florida dentist with AIDS were all infected with strains of the human immunodeficiency virus extremely similar to that of the dentist -- but unlike other strains found in the community -- indicating that they were infected in his office, the Los Angeles Times has learned.The case, expected to be reported next week by the federal Centers for Disease Control, is significant because it has ignited a national controversy over whether HIV-infected health care professionals should be restricted from performing surgery and other invasive procedures.

The Air Force service member infected with rabies before his organs were transplanted into several patients — including one Marylander who died — was thought previously to have been poisoned by a type of fish. Kathy Giery, a director at LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services in Gainesville, Fla., said Monday that the organ recovery service oversaw the transplant process from the rabies-infected donor. The hospital where the donor died told the organ service the person was poisoned by ciguatera, a toxin found in certain kinds of fish, she said.

The state health department has dramatically reduced its estimate of how many Marylanders are infected with the AIDS virus -- suggesting that the true number is one-quarter to one-half previous estimates.Cautioning that the lower estimates should not lull people into complacency, top health officials said yesterday they believe that between 16,000 and 28,000 people across Maryland were infected at the close of 1990.That compares with a previous estimate of 60,000, a projection that officials said was based, in part, on an outmoded formula and the belief that infected individuals were transmitting the virus at an unrealistically fast rate.

A Carroll County man who had active tuberculosis in February infected 12 Pennsylvania residents in addition to the 17 people he infected in Carroll, according to health officials in both states.Three of the Pennsylvania residents developed active cases of tuberculosis, said Robert Walter, community health nurse supervisor for York and Adams counties.Carroll and Pennsylvania health officials have tested 255 people who were exposed to the man. He was diagnosed with infectious tuberculosis during a routine health screening at the Carroll County Detention Center in February.

NEW YORK - Asian longhorned beetles, which have destroyed nearly 3,000 trees in New York City since their first appearance in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn four years ago, have invaded the trees that line Luther Gulick Playground near the Williamsburg Bridge, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern says. The infected trees at least six of the parks 34 Norway maples will be removed immediately, he said. The beetles pose an enormous long-term danger to the citys forests and to trees all along the Northeast, Stern said.

THE LAST PLACE I saw Vicki Tepper was that rowhouse off Loch Raven Boulevard. While men from the March Funeral Home quietly removed mourners' chairs from the little living room, Tepper consoled the grandmother of an 11-year-old boy named John-John who had just died from the effects of AIDS. Tepper went to a lot of funerals in those days. It was six years ago, but it feels longer. Tepper, 45, is director of the Pediatric AIDS program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has 175 children, infants to 18-year-olds, under her treatment there.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Acquired immune deficienc syndrome came relatively late to most of Asia, but it is now spreading so rapidly and so randomly that scientists are convinced AIDS will kill more people on this continent than on any other.Conservative estimates suggest that by 2000, the AIDS virus will be infecting more than 1 million Asians each year, more than in the rest of the world combined.Some researchers fear that the infection rate in Asia will be closer to 3 million or 4 million a year, and that tens of millions of Asians will become infected and die of AIDS over the next two decades.

The state's mosquito-spraying campaign moved into eastern Baltimore County last night after two dead crows infected with the West Nile virus were found in Eastpoint and Dundalk. Four more infected crows were also found in Baltimore, and two in Montgomery County - the first in the Washington suburbs. In all, 21 infected crows have been found this year in Maryland. Also yesterday, Washington officials announced the discovery of two infected crows in that city's northwest section. The southward movement of the virus in September and October is consistent with a federal government prediction last week that the virus would spread south with fall bird migrations.

A deadly virus has stricken Samson, the only elephant born at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore in its 137-year history, but zoologists are hopeful that he will recover because the strain is thought to be less serious in his species. Samson also has survived longer than others with the virus. Caretakers first noticed the soon-to-be-5-year-old male looking lethargic Feb. 26, and feared it was a sign of what is known as elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus. They began treating him for the disease, which can kill within days, and tests confirmed the virus.

A national outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to a tainted steroid killed two Marylanders. Nearly two dozen people living with the disease and hundreds of others who may have been exposed fear they may be next. Sheila Smelkinson began suffering in July from pain in her lower back and right leg that kept the Pikesville resident awake for all but a few hours each night. Cortisone shots, one in August and a second in September, relieved her discomfort - until she received a call informing her the medication was among batches contaminated with fungus in a Massachusetts pharmaceutical facility.

Even as epidemiologists worry about a shrinking arsenal of antibiotics to fight potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital are betting on another weapon to prevent infections: robots. It sounds more futuristic than it looks: The hospital uses "robot" devices resembling portable air-conditioning units to saturate the air in sealed rooms with hydrogen peroxide, disinfecting all surfaces before converting the potent mist into water vapor. The technology has been used at the hospital more than 4,000 times over the past five years, with promising results.

Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug. " A  University of Maryland -led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.  But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community.

Health officials in Maryland confirmed Monday the state's first hepatitis C case directly linked to traveling medical technician David Kwiatkowski, whose arrest by federal law enforcement officials in July in connection with a hepatitis C outbreak in New Hampshire sparked a nationwide probe of patients he had contact with. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said molecular testing conducted at the Centers for Disease Control on a blood specimen from a Baltimore VA Medical Center patient indicates the patient's infection is "closely related" to other infections linked to Kwiatkowski.

As children, our parents take us to the doctor every year, like clockwork. As we get older, regular checkups often fall by the wayside. But they shouldn't. For adults, checkups, preventative screenings and vaccinations are vital to living healthy, happy lives. According to Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director for adult immunization at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, numerous screening procedures and vaccines are available to adults, but they are often underused. "National vaccination rates are low," she says, "even for vaccines that have been recommended for many years.

WASHINGTON -- More than 1,000 Persian Gulf War veterans -- including several from Maryland -- may be infected with a blood parasite that can emerge decades from now to cause high fevers, extreme fatigue and diarrhea, according to a military doctor.The disease, probably caused by the bite of a female sand fly, has been confirmed in only 11 Desert Storm veterans.But Dr. Charles Oster, chief of infectious diseases at the Walter Reed Medical Center, said yesterday that unpublished Army research studies on two groups of seemingly healthy elite troops suggests that "hundreds" of other Gulf War veterans may have the infection without knowing it."

A fifth crow infected with West Nile virus was found in Howard County last week, according to county health authorities. The dead bird was found Aug. 27 in the 8100 block of Woodloo Road in Ellicott City, and it tested positive for the virus two days later, county health officials announced yesterday. The four other infected birds found in Howard County were in Owen Brown and Long Reach villages in east Columbia. In addition, state investigators found a mosquito pool containing insects infected with the virus on Junction Drive in a Savage industrial park.

Another fungal meningitis case has been reported in Maryland, bringing the total number of infections tied to tainted steroids in the state to 16. The tally has doubled over the past week, and it has nearly doubled nationwide as well, according to the CDC. There have been 231 cases of meningitis across the country, caused when patients received spinal injections of the steroids to treat back pain. The outbreak has caused no additional deaths in Maryland; one death was reported in the state before Oct. 6. Meningitis is an infection of the fluid surrounding the spine and brain.

Living near a livestock farm may increase your risk of acquiring an antibiotic-resistant infection, according to a new study led by researchers from Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health . In reviewing data from the Netherlands, a team of Hopkins and Dutch scientists found that the odds of being exposed to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, are greatest in the southeast region of that European country, an...