The state health department said there is no evidence that the deaths of two adults from complications of viral infections at Lutheran Hospital in Wheat Ridge signal an alarming outbreak of serious illness among adults from enterovirus.
“It was jumping the gun,” Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment director Larry Wolk said of a physician’s decision to link the two Wheat Ridge deaths, disclosed Wednesday, to the nationwide outbreak of enterovirus 68. The health department has not issued a public health alert for adults.
“Those deaths could well be part of the dozens of deaths we see each year involving complications from flu and colds,” Wolk said. “It’s been a particularly bad enterovirus year, and I suspect we could see a couple more deaths among adults and kids.”
Enterovirus 68, also called EV-D68, is suspected of sickening thousands of Colorado kids, hospitalizing more than 400 with severe respiratory illness and also possibly leading to the partial paralysis of 11 children treated at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
So far, no Colorado children have died from the virus, according to the state health department, but other states have reported four deaths associated with — but not attributed to — the virus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating the Colorado cluster of the 11 highly unusual cases of severe respiratory illness followed by extreme muscle weakness in faces and limbs.
Dr. Phil Emrie, a critical-care lung specialist at Lutheran, said the adult patients he has been treating — about 19 documented over the past month — might not have enterovirus 68, but the hospital has been testing them and finding some type of enterovirus present.
Lutheran spokeswoman Sarah Ellis said the hospital was not releasing any additional information about the patients, including their ages or when they died, but she did say the patients’ health already had been compromised by other conditions.
Wolk said the public disclosure lacked enough context for people to assess risk to the general population.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or
