Brother & Sister Found Dead; Brother worked at Sampson Cty Hog Farm Where '98 Earliest Case of Current Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak Occurred

I've just learned of this situation (hat-tip Flutrackers) and I'll posts excerpts with links to bring you up-to-date.

Brother and sister found dead in Willard, family says they died from the flu
Submitted by Cliff Pyron on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:59pm

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) -- Pender County Sheriff's deputies are investigating the deaths of a brother and sister from Willard. Their bodies were found off Highway 11 in Pender County Saturday evening.

Deputies responded to a call from family members to find 63-year-old Warren Gore and 65-year-old Annie Gore, dead in their homes at 9085 and 9065 Highway 11.

Family members told WWAY off camera that they died from a case of the flu , a major concern for neighbors and friends.

"Who knows what it came from," said Nisha Mckoy, a neighbor of the Gore's. "It has me alerted right now, checking out the children, my nieces and nephews and everything as well as myself to try and make sure that we're all healthy. I think everyone should go be checked out."

Family says Warren and Annie had not been to the doctor yet because they did not believe their condition was that serious.

-snip-

http://tinyurl.com/7le7hw4

In this story, Annie Gore's daughter talks about the Uncle, Warren, worked at a hog farm. He is one of the two that died.

Woman thinks hog farm may have contributed to death of mother, uncle
Submitted by Cliff Pyron on Mon, 05/07/2012 - 3:57pm
PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) -- A Pender County family is searching for answers after the death of a brother and sister. Annie and Warren Gore were found dead in their homes in Willard Saturday after complaining about flu-like symptoms. Relatives say they might know where the disease came from.

"It's hard to believe that this could happen," Quintella West said.

West and her family are looking for answers. West, the only child of the late Annie Gore, says her mom was feeling sick Wednesday. Annie and her brother and next-door neighbor Warren were found dead just a few days later. West says her mother had been dead a few days.

"It's flu? This was too quick for a flu," West said. "It's not good, and I just want answers to know what happened to my mother."

West says she doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but she did make the connection that her mother began getting sick after taking her uncle to work every day at a hog farm in Sampson County.

"She said every time she took him to work she felt worse and worse," West said. "She had to ride in his truck one day, and she says she really, really felt bad."

After learning more about the background of the death investigation we called the Pender County Health Department. They said they have done preliminary work on the case, and that no one else is sick that works at the farm or who lives near the gores.

The Health Department says it will wait on autopsy results before it looks into what happened any further.
-snip-
http://tinyurl.com/c3dedc3

Unfortunately, the autopsy appears inconclusive:

Autopsy inconclusive in deaths of NC siblings
Posted: Tuesday, May. 08, 2012

WILMINGTON, N.C. Medical examiners have not been able to determine what killed a brother and a sister found dead in their nearby homes in Pender County over the weekend.
-snip-
Authorities said an initial autopsy was inconclusive and additional toxicology tests will be conducted to determine how they died.

Sheriff's Detective D.L. Wells says while foul play has not been ruled out, it appears the two died of medical problems.

There were no signs of trauma and family members told authorities the two said recently they felt ill.
http://tinyurl.com/7cm9ln8

I also found an article on new cases of Whooping Cough, in the same County. The article has been updated on the 7th, most likely to add that the Health Department is giving free vaccine to Adults. The author of this story is the Staff of the Newspaper (WECT staff):

Cases of whooping cough pop up in Pender Co.
Posted: May 03, 2012 5:19 PM EDT Updated: May 07, 2012 5:20 PM EDT
By: WECT Staff - email
PENDER COUNTY, NC (WECT) - Three cases of pertussis, also known as the whooping cough, have been detected in the Rocky Point area of Pender County, and the bacterial disease can be fatal for small children.

The Pender County Health Director, Carolyn Moser says there haven't been anymore confirmed cases of whooping cough, adding that she hopes this is the end of the small outbreak.

Still, she's not confirming anything else yet, and the department was quick to get a warning out to schools and health care providers.

The highly-infectious disease can last up to six weeks, and Moser says a while ago, the vaccination was made to be less potent As a result, adults are at risk to catch it from their children.

"Our immunity is starting to wane; therefore, anyone ought to consider getting a TDAP if not every couple of years, definitely within 5 years," said Moser.

Currently, the health department in Pender County is offering a free vaccination for any adult who may need one.
http://tinyurl.com/763yyb9

And, to top this whole Summary off, the Swine Flu gene's in 2009 were traced to the very same Hog Farm that Warren worked at:

Excerpt:
Swine flu genes traced to North Carolina factory farm
05/05/2009
-snip-
As it turns out, there's a more direct connection between the current swine flu outbreak and North Carolina: Scientists working to understand the genetic makeup of the H1N1 virus that causes the disease have linked it to a virus behind a 1998 swine flu outbreak at an industrial hog farm in Sampson County, North Carolina's leading hog producer.

"This virus was found in pigs here in the United States," Rabadan said in an interview. "They were getting sick in 1998. It became a swine virus."

It spread among pregnant sows in Newton Grove, N.C., causing them to abort their litters. The virus then spread to pigs in Texas, Iowa and Minnesota -- putting epidemiologists on alert about the new viral strain and the potential for a human outbreak.

A May 1999 N&O story titled "Disease detectives untangle mystery of mutant flu virus" (available in the paper's online archives) reported that the 1998 bug -- a pig virus "wrapped in a shell of human proteins" -- was isolated by a state government veterinary lab. Similar mutations are suspected in earlier flu outbreaks, including the 1918 Spanish flu that killed more than 20 million people worldwide.

According to that story, the virus was discovered in August 1998 at a 2,400-sow breeding farm owned by Newton Grove, N.C.-based Hog Slat Inc., a leading builder of factory-style hog farms. The company is also one of Sampson County's largest employers -- as is Smithfield Foods, the Virginia-based corporation that owns numerous hog farms near the Mexican community where the earliest case of the current swine flu was identified.

The 1998 North Carolina outbreak began with pregnant sows developing high fevers. A state microbiologist who tested nasal samples taken from the animals was surprised to encounter a virus he didn't recognize -- and his alarm grew when he found that some of the sick animals had been immunized for ordinary swine flu, the N&O reported:
continued: http://tinyurl.com/cuj4rj