MYSTERY ILLNESS KILLS INTRAVENOUS DRUG USERS

U.K. Doctors Baffled As Most Victims Die Within Days

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a scenario eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of
the AIDS epidemic, nearly 60 intravenous drug users in Scotland, Ireland
and England have become ill or died since April of a mysterious illness
whose origins health officials have not yet identified.

The baffling ailment is characterized by excessive swelling and redness at
the injection site, low blood pressure and a high white blood cell count,
often followed by heart failure.

More than half the victims have died - most of them about two days after
being admitted to hospital - despite treatment with broad spectrum
antibiotics and other measures.

And while blood and tissue cultures have shown multiple organisms, none has
yet been identified as a likely culprit.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, called two weeks ago
by British health authorities to help in the investigation, said in its
first public report on the mystery illness yesterday that "the emergence of
a new illness is possible," but stressed that it appears to be confined to
intravenous drug users.

"This is a serious illness among members of this particular community,"
said Dr. Marc Fischer, co-ordinator of CDC's surveillance project for
unexplained deaths and critical illnesses. "Something is going on - but
we're not sure at this point what it is.

"Right now, though, the greatest likelihood is that it is an organism
previously known and described and showing itself in a new way."

But he emphasized that, because the early part of the illness involves the
injection site, "this suggests it is somehow related to that practice."

Health officials are disseminating information about the illness to
health-care practitioners and trying to identify possible risk factors so
prevention strategies can be developed.

They are questioning patients to see what they might have in common -
specifically sources of their drugs and the timing of injections.

There have been 59 cases - 30 in Glasgow, Scotland; 15 in Dublin, Ireland;
and 14 around England, with 30 deaths among them, CDC said.

Health officials at first feared the cause might be anthrax, but have found
no evidence of that. Cultures have found several bacteria among some
patients, including group A streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, and
bacteria from the families of Clostridium and Bacillus, which cause several
potentially serious diseases.

Because antibiotics haven't helped, there's speculation the agent could be
a toxin-producing one. Some toxin-related illnesses - like botulism,
tetanus - can be treated with anti-toxins.

"But we can't treat a toxin when we don't know what it is," Fischer said.