A second round of blood tests has confirmed that two Island men who
fell ill earlier this month with symptoms of pneumonia actually had the
pneumonic form of tularemia, the rare bacterial disease that killed a
Chilmark man almost two years ago.
A second round of blood tests has confirmed that two Island men who
fell ill earlier this month with symptoms of pneumonia actually had the
pneumonic form of tularemia, the rare bacterial disease that killed a
Chilmark man almost two years ago.
The Harvard scientists who spent the last four days on the Vineyard
collecting clues that could help them solve the Island's biggest
medical mystery came armed with an unusual tool kit: an aerosol can of
automotive starter fluid, two flowerpots painted blue, a bag of apples
and an empty can of Diet Coke.
Suspicions that tularemia has made a comeback on the Vineyard for
the third summer in a row have prompted a series of new health
advisories aimed at the group of people at highest risk for the disease
- landscapers.
From the start, scientists have viewed the outbreak of tularemia on Martha's Vineyard as an ecological puzzle, never a case of bio-terrorism, despite tularemia's recognized status as a bacteria ideally suited for terrorism.
Public health officials this week confirmed the third case
of tularemia contracted on the Vineyard.
Are rabbits really to blame for last summer's outbreak of tularemia and for what could be a repeat performance this year?
Sam Telford, a parasitologist from Harvard University and the newest member of a team sent here to investigate why such a rare disease has taken hold on the Vineyard, doesn't think so. What's more, Mr. Telford is just as skeptical about the prevailing theory that most victims breathed in air particles contaminated with the tularemia bacteria.
