Mystery Illness Hits Woman's Prison, 1 Dead, 240 Quarantined, Medical Emergency

A 42-year-old inmate died early Saturday morning prompting all visitations this weekend at the McPherson women’s prison in Newport to be canceled.  Additional doctors and nurses have been called in to treat others with symptoms and to screen the nearly 900 inmates at the facility. 

Corrections officials say the illnesses are happening in housing area three.  We’re told 240 inmates living there are under quarantine and are being kept away from the general population.
    
Corrections officials say they don’t know what killed the 42-year-old woman. They say she had flu-like symptoms, but test showed she didn’t actually have the flu.

So if it’s not H1N1, then what is it?  I think it will turn out to be H1N1 somehow in the long run.  They didn’t know what was killing people down in Houston and said it wasn’t H1N1 either until they said it was H1N1.  In any case, prisons are kindling for beasts like this.  Spread through a prison population like wildfire.  Whatever this is, I hope people are watching closely.  -Mort