Boot camp flu hits Air Force recruits in San Antonio

Houston Chronicle:

Recruits at Lackland Air Force Base continued to get sick from a mutated version of a common cold virus known as "boot camp flu" during the past three months, but occurrences have dropped since earlier this year.

Adenoviruses sickened hundreds of recruits at Lackland in the spring and summer with the most serious cases blamed on a new variant called Ad14.

Five airmen ended up in an intensive care unit, and 19-year-old Paige Villers of Norton, Ohio, died from the sickness in early August.

The base said 39 airmen tested positive for adenoviruses in November, all with the Ad14 strain. That was down from 100 positive tests in October, also with the Ad14 strain. Ninety-six recruits tested positive in September, 90 percent with the Ad14 strain.

Ten recruits were hospitalized for pneumonia during the three-month period, and 430 recruits were put on bed rest for viruses of all kinds.

"I'm not a conspiracy person, so I wouldn't assume this is unusual at all," said Jean Patterson, chair of the virology and immunology department at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. "We fight the bugs, the bug gets in, and this is just the way nature works."

Lackland's population averaged more than 4,300 trainees in September and October and more than 3,400 in November.

There are more than 50 distinct types of adenoviruses tied to human illnesses. They are one cause of the common cold, and also trigger pneumonia and bronchitis. Severe illnesses are more likely in people with weaker immune systems.

The Ad14 form has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, U.S. health officials said in November.

The strain was first identified in 1955. In 1969, it was blamed for a rash of illnesses in military recruits stationed in Europe, but it's been detected rarely since then. But it seems to be growing more common. The strain accounted for 6 percent of adenovirus samples collected in 22 medical facilities in 2006, while none was seen the previous two years, according to a study published last month in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Patterson predicted another virus strain will replace Ad14 once it runs its course at Lackland.

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I am sure Osama wishes he knew how to spread this virus, but nature is doing a pretty good job on its own. People living and working in close proximity naturally spread the stuff. About the only times I have had the flu was when my kids brought it home from school. I never caught the name or the number of the variety, but it can be debilitating.