The death from pneumonia in the U.S. army is "rare, but it does occur"

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The U.S. Army has dispatched investigative medical teams to Iraq and Germany to look into an unusually large number of cases of pneumonia that have affected at least 100 U.S. troops deployed in and around Iraq and left two of them dead, Pentagon officials said Saturday, August 2.

"If the teams determine that the cases are unusual in any way, they will make preventive or corrective recommendations," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the office of the U.S.  Army surgeon general as saying in a statement.

But in describing the situation, the military used the word "concern," and its own statistics bear that out.

Normally, the U.S. Army averages nine incidents of pneumonia per 10,000 soldiers a year - cases that are serious enough to require hospitalization.

However, since March 1, when thousands of U.S. troops were massed around Iraq ready for a strike, the disease has already hit approximately 100 servicemen.

Three fell gravely ill with pneumonia in March, three more in April, two in May, three again in June and four in July. Fifteen soldiers were so ill they required ventilator support, according to the Army.

'Puzzling' 

But the fact that all the cases have occurred just in the past five months and in the same, albeit vast, geographical area is puzzling specialists.

The statement said that the death from pneumonia in the U.S. army is "rare, but it does occur."

"Death from pneumonia in a young, otherwise healthy population is rare, but it does occur," the surgeon general's office said, pointing out that in the five years beginning in 1998, 17 U.S. soldiers died from the disease or from complications caused by it.

So far, evidence does not support the theory of a local epidemic. According to the defense officials, the pneumonia has afflicted soldiers deployed in various parts of Iraq and belonging to different units.

That led the surgeon general to conclude that "no infectious agent common to all of the cases" can be identified at this point.

"Additionally, there is no evidence that any of the pneumonia cases being investigated have been caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), or environmental toxins," the office added.

In an effort to find a clue, one of the epidemiological teams flew to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where most of the diseased soldiers were treated after their evacuation from the battle zone.

The second team will conduct its probe in Iraq, where it will question doctors in field hospitals as well as sample soil, water and air to examine whether these factors might have played a part.

The defense officials cautioned that sometimes correlations among cases do not exist, and definitive conclusions about their origin might not be possible.

The investigation served as a reminder of the plight of more than 200,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, fought in 1991 to eject Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait, who to this day complain of a slew of unexplained ailments referred to collectively as the Gulf War syndrome (GWS).   

Most of them say they suffer from persistent headaches, skin rashes, shortness of breath and sleep disorders, in addition to cases of cancer, neurological diseases and birth defects among children born to some of the veterans.

Founder of the American Gulf War Veterans Association Joyce Riley lashed out at the U.S. administration before the 2003 war on Iraq, warning of a tragic repetition of the GWS. 

Cholera outbreak was already witnessed in the capital Baghdad and other areas as Najaf, Basra and Al-Emara.

After the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, all branches of the country's health care system have been deteriorated to its lowest. Health care institutions and hospitals that were once well equipped, well supplied and easily accessed by patients, have now become overcrowded, unhygienic and foul smelling.