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Chiang Mai: Unexplained myocarditis - 7 deaths - pesticide poisoning suspected

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  • Chiang Mai: Unexplained myocarditis - 7 deaths - pesticide poisoning suspected

    ....
    Sarah Carter, 23, of Wellington, was on a three-week holiday with two close friends when they became ill after eating food from a market.

    Carter died on Waitangi Day, February 6; her friend Amanda Eliason, 24, is still recovering from emergency heart surgery, and Emma Langlands, 23, is also being treated in Chiang Mai Ram Hospital.

    ...
    At this stage, Sarah's death is thought to be from myocarditis inflammation of the heart from viral, bacterial or fungal infections.

    Despite news that Thai officials have sent an epidemiology team to Chiang Mai to carry out an investigation into Sarah's death, her parents say they are not focused on how she died but rather paying tribute to her life.

    The couple say they will not be asking for any toxicology requests as they know all three girls "received wonderful care at the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital".
    ...

    belinda.mccammon@star-times.co.nz

    - Sunday Star Times
    Full story: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-t...shock-at-death
    "The only security we have is our ability to adapt."

  • #2
    Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

    I hope that Sarah Carter's memory lives on forever and her family is consoled knowing that she was so brave and lived her dreams and was so very kind and a truly gentle lady. This is so tragic for her to depart this world early and way too soon. Her two friends Amanda and Emma were lucky to know her and be her good friends and travel with her.
    Myocarditis from 'viral, bacterial or fungal' source, sure sounds like food poisoning.
    Thank you Kiwibird for this updated information.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

      Thank you Kiwibird and JC

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

        ....
        It was reported Sarah Carter, 23, died in Thailand seven days ago after eating a seaweed dish at a food market in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

        However, health officials are doubtful it was this dish that was responsible.

        Carter's friend Amanda Eliason, 24, is recovering from emergency heart surgery and Emma Langlands is also being treated in Chiang Mai Ram Hospital, though she did not eat the seaweed dish.
        ....

        Her death could as easily have been caused by "some other infection" rather than toxic seaweed, even an illness such as influenza, Dr Pasakorn said. The team of doctors was reporting back to him and he hoped to have a report ready by Tuesday.....

        Full story: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/n...d-Sarah-Carter

        JC - I couldn't agree more - what a great pity. Her family and friends will be devastated. I hope her friends make a speedy recovery. Just so sad.
        "The only security we have is our ability to adapt."

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

          A tragic loss

          Thais doubt seaweed killed Sarah Carter

          THAI officials have sent an epidemiology team to Chiang Mai to carry out an investigation into the death of a Wellington woman and the poisoning of her two travel companions.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

            While myocarditis can be an occasional rare complication of influenza (or of adenovirus, enterovirus, and many other common pathogens), the fact that a friend of the deceased also needed heart surgery means that 2 of the 3 cases had myocarditis, and suggests that something else attacked their hearts.

            I wonder if the three of them could have picked up some rare parasite that attacks the heart. A toxic poisoning, perhaps not even necessarily food-borne, might also be under investigation. The timing below does suggest a simultaneous exposure, rather than contagion.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised



              Food poisoning victim not sure what killed her friend
              Published: 7:35AM Thursday February 10, 2011 Source: NZPA

              Email this article Print this article Text size + - Share on Twitter Share on Facebook
              Sarah Carter - Source: Facebook
              Related
              Toxic food kills young Kiwi in Thailand watch
              Woman's death not from toxic seaweed says family watch
              The funeral for a New Zealand woman who died from food poisoning while holidaying in Thailand will be held on Valentine's Day.

              It was initially thought that toxic seaweed cost 23-year-old Sarah Carter her life and made her two travelling companions Amanda Eliason, 24, and Emma Langlands, 23, violently ill.

              But Eliason said from her hospital bed in the Thaliand city of Chiang Mai that she did not know what it was that killed her friend and left her own life hanging in the balance.

              She said that doctors had taken samples but were still unsure of the cause of their illness.

              She told the Taranaki Daily News that all three had eaten dinner at a food market late last week and began vomiting early the next morning.

              "By 10.30am we called hotel reception and they said they would arrange for a doctor to come and see us."

              She said the vomiting stopped for four hours but by late afternoon they were all ill again.


              "After getting back in touch with the doctor we were told to go to hospital and by 1am on Friday morning we were all in hospital," she said.

              Eliason eventually needed heart surgery to assist her recovery but doctors lost the battle to save Carter.

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              Eliason's grandmother Val told ONE News Amanda is going well, and both her and Langlands are now in the general ward together.

              Eliason will be assessed by a cardiologist tomorrow to see if she's well enough to spend a few days out of hospital and at a hotel and then determine whether she is well enough to travel home.

              Emma Langlands' father Rick told ONE News he is hopeful his daughter will be given clearance to go home today.

              Details of Carter's Auckland funeral were released on social networking site Facebook yesterday by a family member.

              "All are welcome to attend and celebrate the life of Sarah Carter," the message said.

              Carter's mother and brother will bring her body home on Friday and her funeral will be held on Monday in the Auckland suburb of Howick where her mother and father live.

              Raised in Auckland, Carter studied chemistry at Victoria University and had been working at Wellington accounting firm BDO Spicers in the past year.

              A separate service for her Wellington friends and work colleagues is planned for the capital.

              A close family friend, Kay Savill, who had known Carter since she was about 11-years-old, said she was absolutely devastated by the news.

              "Sarah was the most delightful girl you could possibly have met. She was really a lovely girl, she was lovely to look at and she was lovely in herself."

              "She wasn't a silly girl, she was a clever, studious girl," Savill said.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                Thanks to you too Sally Furniss, kiwibird and Alert.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                  http://www.3news.co.nz/Kiwi-one-of-4...4/Default.aspx
                  Kiwi one of 4 mystery deaths at Thai hotel
                  Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:02a.m.
                  Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:02a.m.

                  Thai police are investigating the unexplained deaths of three others who stayed in the same Chiang Mai hotel as New Zealand tourist Sarah Carter.

                  Auckland-born Miss Carter died in mysterious circumstances on February 6, and police now say an elderly British couple and a female Thai tour guide died after staying in the Downtown Inn last month.
                  _____________________________________________

                  Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

                  i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

                  "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

                  (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
                  Never forget Excalibur.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                    Four deaths and two near-deadly illnesses within a few days in the same hotel sounds more like a communicable disease than "food poisoning"; however, the simultaneous illness of the three young women is perplexing. If food was the problem, then the three young women would have had to have eaten the same thing that contained the pathogen or toxin. It would have to have been similar with the British couple and they would have died at approximately the same time, otherwise I would expect if one died, the other would call for help.
                    "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." - Mother Teresa of Calcutta

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                      It's rare, but it sounds like legionella can present primarily as a cardio condition.

                      Myocarditis: a rare complication during Legionella infection
                      International Journal of Cardiology
                      Volume 37, Issue 3, December 1992, Pages 418-420

                      Arrhythmia or myocarditis: a novel clinical form of Legionella pneumophila infection in children without pneumonia.
                      Eur J Pediatr. 1985 Jul;144(2):157-9.
                      _____________________________________________

                      Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

                      i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

                      "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

                      (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
                      Never forget Excalibur.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                        Interesting idea. The fact that four deaths were linked to the same hotel, but no illness was reported in any contact who did not go to that hotel seems to indicate some kind of exposure in the hotel, especially with the fact that the Thai woman was in the room next door to the New Zealanders.

                        I might think that if it were Legionella, there would have been some respiratory symptoms, too, in at least some of the cases. The suddenness of onset and the fact that the Thai woman was in the room next door seem to indicate to me that some type of toxin might have been involved. I wonder if the possiblility of venom, such as spider bites, has been investigated, as there are some known venoms that are cardiotoxic.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Thailand: Unexplained myocarditis - 6 cases, 4 deaths

                          Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has ordered a report into a Thai police investigation of four deaths at a hotel including that of a New Zealander.


                          NZ woman's death linked to others at Thai hotel
                          Updated 33 minutes ago

                          The father of a young Wellington woman who died after falling ill in Thailand says he wants more done by the Thai and New Zealand governments to find out why she died.

                          Thai police are reported to be investigating four deaths over a three-week period at the same Thai hotel where 23-year-old Sarah Carter and two friends became ill after visiting a food market in Chiang Mai.

                          Ms Carter subsequently died, while her friends recovered. They have since returned to New Zealand.

                          The others who died at the hotel were a Thai tour guide and a British couple believed to have been in their 70s.

                          Police say there is no indication yet that the deaths were linked but say they are investigating. In a media report the acting hotel manager is quoted as saying the deaths were a coincidence. [Sure...we believe that... - alert]

                          Ms Carter's father, Richard Carter, says he believes it's no coincidence.

                          The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says New Zealand's embassy in Thailand has requested the results of tests on Ms Carter and her friends, and the findings into two investigations by the Thai Centre for Disease.



                          Copyright ? 2011, Radio New Zealand

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                            I might think that if it were Legionella, there would have been some respiratory symptoms, too, in at least some of the cases.
                            I agree, Alert. This report from 2009 might be the first case of "...a rare manifestation of Legionella pneumophila-induced perimyocarditis (strongly suspected, if not incontrovertibly proved) in an adult, in the absence of pneumonia." So it would seem beyond rare for so many adults, some healthy and young, to have this rare presentation of Legionella in a cluster.

                            http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2801935/
                            _____________________________________________

                            Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

                            i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

                            "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

                            (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
                            Never forget Excalibur.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: 23 Year old dies of myocarditis - 2 friends hospitalised

                              I noticed a somewhat similar cluster of Thailand hotel mystery deaths and illnesses reported by the Seattle media in 2009.

                              http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ailand08m.html
                              "With only days before they were to head home, they decided to "splurge" on a room with air conditioning on the island of Koh Phi Phi. That evening, Jill started feeling sick, and they chalked it up to food poisoning. Within a few hours, it was clear she needed to be hospitalized."
                              _____________________________________________

                              Ask Congress to Investigate COVID Origins and Government Response to Pandemic.

                              i love myself. the quietest. simplest. most powerful. revolution ever. ---- nayyirah waheed

                              "...there’s an obvious contest that’s happening between different sectors of the colonial ruling class in this country. And they would, if they could, lump us into their beef, their struggle." ---- Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party

                              (My posts are not intended as advice or professional assessments of any kind.)
                              Never forget Excalibur.

                              Comment

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