Be warned:Rare type of pneumonia infecting US troops in war zones!

By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, October 4, 2008

LANDSTUHL, Germany - Military doctors are seeing a resurgence of a rare and sometimes fatal type of pneumonia that is striking young troops who started smoking while deployed downrange.

In the past five months, six U.S. servicemembers serving in Central Command's area of responsibility have been diagnosed with acute eosinophilic pneumonia, or AEP. While the exact cause of the illness is unknown, 27 of the 36 troops who have contracted AEP since March 2003 had recently picked up the habit, according to a July 2008 information paper from the Army's Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

Also, three-fourths of those troops came down with the illness while serving in Iraq. Other cases have originated with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Kuwait, Qatar and Uzbekistan.

Two troops have died as a result of the disease.

On average, the AEP patients are around 22 years old, said Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Patrick Allan, a critical care pulmonary physician at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

In addition to the two servicemembers who died from complications of AEP, there have been others who were near death before recovering, doctors said. Landstuhl sent its specialty lung team downrange to treat three troops with AEP. The patients were so bad doctors had them on highly technical breathing machines to keep them alive.

In February 2007, a medical alert on AEP was issued in Iraq and signed by then-Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, warning troops about the illness' association with smoking. Because AEP is so rare, there are no good studies suggesting the military has a disproportionate number of cases compared to the U.S. civilian population, Allan said.

full aricle

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57875

source :
http://www.iraq-war.ru/home/

comment :Smoking ?what kind of smoking is popular at the Stars and Stripes stripes miltary propagandists ?

Sounds like a form of ww1 spanish flu to me ,Its occurance in US troops on a number of different battlefronts might indicate some form of Germ warfare like the old spreading of cholera infected blankets to the Indians in the past.Perhaps The US forces are vaccinated against this particular form of flu?

In any case its spread amongst civilians or enemy forces not having the quick intensive care provided by the US army must be having deadly effects .