Ship quarantined after sailor's death

The Galveston Daily News
by Scott E. Williams
09/08/04

GALVESTON - A 544-foot cargo ship has been quarantined about 10 miles from Galveston for a week after a crew member died of what federal officials say could have been a viral infection.

An autopsy today could determine what killed a 36-year-old worker on Aug. 31 while aboard the ship. The man had been ill for several days, said Dave Daigle, spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Daigle said the captain volunteered to quarantine the ship offshore pending the results of the autopsy. The CDC has maintained the quarantine and is working with county officials in the case. Twenty crew members remain on the vessel, which was near the mouth of the Houston ship channel on Tuesday.

The concern is that there are suspicions he might have died of Lassa fever, Daigle said.  Lassa fever, named for the Nigerian village where it was first documented, is a viral infection carried by rats that are common throughout western Africa, where 100,000 to 300,000 cases are reported annually, 5,000 of which end in death. The CDC estimates that the infection carries a 1 percent mortality rate.

The ship, the Lady Marilyn, left western Africa on Aug. 13, said Galveston County Health District Spokesman Kurt Koopmann. Several days later the crew member became ill and got increasingly sicker. The ship was carrying 22,000 tons of phosphate. Stephen Pustilnik, the county's chief medical examiner, said he would conduct an autopsy on the mans body today. A Coast Guard crew took the body to shore on Sunday.

The cause of the mans death might not become official until the end of the week, however. Even if the cause proves to be Lassa fever, Daigle said, the populace of Galveston County should not become alarmed, as it is only passed by contact with bodily fluids.

At that point, we would conduct a risk assessment, and I think mainly the people who provided care to him would be the ones considered at high risk, Daigle said, adding that the high-risk people would probably require 21 days observation.

Symptoms of Lassa fever include abdominal pain, tremors and hearing loss. Doctors can treat the disease with the antiviral medication Ribavirin.

The dead sailors name was not released Tuesday, pending next-of-kin notification.

Read the press release

For More Information Contact:
Kurt Koopmann
Public Information Officer
Galveston County Health District
(409) 938-2211
kkoopman@gchd.org