News - Local
Virus Killed 3 and Made 40 Ill at State Mental Hospital
Posted: May 10, 2010 3:57 PM by Melissa Canone
Updated: May 10, 2010 3:57 PM
PINEVILLE, La. (AP) - Louisiana's state health secretary says it
was a virus that made 40 people ill at a state mental hospital, and
investigators are still working to find out why three of them died.
Doctors first thought that food poisoning had sickened patients
and staffers at Central Louisiana State Hospital in Pineville.
Secretary Alan Levine said Monday that it was norovirus, which
spreads very fast - explaining how so many people got sick at once.
But he says that deaths from norovirus are not that common.
A 41-year-old man, a 43-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man
died late Friday or early Saturday.
Levine says lab work, including toxicity screens, and other
investigation will help explain whether it was a medical management
issue, a bad reaction to the virus, or something else.
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