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Emmett Klessig, 16, dies of rare ‘blasto’
By Kurt Krueger
News-Review Editor
The Eagle River community is mourning the loss of
16-year-old Emmett David Klessig, who died Saturday, Jan. 5, of
what authorities believe was the rare fungal disease
blastomycosis.
Klessig, a sophomore at Northland Pines High School, was
regarded by school officials as a hardworking, conscientious
student who was friendly and popular.
“The impact here is huge. A lot of kids are affected,”
high school Principal Pat Sullivan said Monday. “It is a sad and
very quiet day.”
Sullivan said the news was a shock to everyone; that
conversations last week focused on his recovery and when he
would return to school.
“He was deeply concerned about getting his homework with the end
of the term two weeks away,” said Sullivan. “I just can’t say
enough good about Emmett. He was just what you would want your
son to be.”
Klessig died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield
where he was diagnosed with blastomycosis, or blasto, a disease
that usually infects the lungs and can impact other organs.
Officials with the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family
Services said if preliminary indications are confirmed, it will
be state’s ninth fatality related to blasto cases that were
acquired in 2007.
Department spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said a final
determination on the cause of death won’t be made until other
laboratory tests are completed later this week.
“Our thoughts are with a family right now; someone who lost a
son,” said Marquis. “We want other parents to know that blasto
isn’t spread from person to person. No other students are at
risk.”
She said there were 108 cases of blasto reported statewide in
2007, including five in Vilas County. She said that was about
average, and far less than the spike of 171 cases and 14 deaths
the state saw in 2006.
Someone has died of blastomycosis in each of the past three
years in Vilas, which in the five-year period between 2000 and
2004, had the second-highest incident rate of 33.2 cases for
every 100,000 in the population.
Nationally, health officials say about four of every 100,000
people will get the disease. In Lincoln County, that number
rises to 40 of 100,000 people and in the Eagle River area, it
may be as high as 100 in 100,000 people, according to long-term
trends researched by officials at Marshfield Clinic.
John Archer, an epidemiologist in Madison, said blasto develops
when spores of the B. dermatitidis are inhaled and establish a
primary infection in the lung.
Archer said the fungus probably resides in moist soil with
decomposing organic debris. It appears that only under quite
specific conditions of humidity, temperature and nutrition can
the fungus grow and produce the infecting spores, which become
airborne when soil is disturbed, he said.
Klessig was known as a boy who loved the outdoors. His hobbies
included hunting for bear, deer and waterfowl.
He also was a member of the Northland Pines
cross-country and track and field sports teams.
State officials are calling for increased public
awareness of the disease, seeing that more cases from late fall
could still surface with the incubation period lasting as long
as 90 days and averaging about 45 days.
Marquis said the disease can present as other things, and that
the symptoms can come and go. She said it is more prevalent in
the spring and fall because that is when people participate in
more activities that disturb the soil.
Symptoms can include high fever, dry cough, thick sputum, weight
loss, chest pain and tightness, night sweats, shortness of
breath and muscular aches.
Once diagnosed, blasto is treated with one or more of four
anti-fungal drugs. If the disease is life-threatening or
affecting the central nervous system, it is treated with
amphotericin B — which is administered intravenously and is
monitored closely because of its potential adverse impacts to
kidneys.
Marquis said itraconazole and fluconazole are excellent
treatment for patients who are not critically ill or who have no
central nervous system involvement. She said the newest oral
treatment is called sporanox.
She said physicians statewide are updated annually
about the blastomycosis threat through the Health Alert Network
and electronic mailings.
“It’s a good idea for anyone who experiences persistent symptoms
to see a doctor,” said Marquis. “It could also be quite helpful
if people tell their physician whether they have been working
with soil, especially along the waterways.”
She suggests that people wear a mask when working in soil to
prevent the breathing of the spores.
Blastomycosis is a relatively rare and very mysterious disease
that seems to show up to differing degrees and in differing
locations each year, depending on the weather.
It was 22 years ago that one of the worst blastomycosis
outbreaks in U.S. history occurred just west of Eagle River,
when 48 students on a field trip contracted the disease after
walking on a beaver dam and lodge on a small pond off the
Wisconsin River, not far from the Otter Rapids Dam.
Another outbreak occurred last spring in Lincoln County, where
Archer said the release of spores was traced to a brush pile.
From January through March, 34 cases were reported in Lincoln
and Marathon counties.
Blasto often appears in dogs and less frequently in cats, horses
and ferrets. Archer said just as it is not possible that a
person can catch blastomycosis from another person, people also
cannot get the disease from their dogs.
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