Fatal Illness in GEO Private Prison

Scott over at Grits) points us to a story in a GEO private prison about a fatal illness that has authorities baffled and has prompted calls to CDC. Two men have already died in the last month.

A mysterious illness at a Del Rio detention center that has killed two inmates and hospitalized two others within the past month has baffled health authorities, who have asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help.

All four men — three of them foreign nationals from Honduras and Mexico held on immigration charges, the fourth a Val Verde county prisoner who was one of the dead — were described as in their 20s and 30s, and apparently healthy when they arrived at the Val Verde Correctional Facility and County Jail.

The privately operated 850-bed medium-security facility is under contract to house federal detainees for the U.S. Marshal's Service and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as local prisoners.

One of the ill inmates was brought to an unidentified San Antonio hospital; the other remains hospitalized in Del Rio. Their conditions have not been released.

"It's still a big mystery to us," said Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu, regional medical director of the Texas Department of State Health Services, who is heading the investigation. "I can't tell you that we've figured it out. But we're in the process of requesting assistance from CDC and others to come and help us."

The first inmate became ill in mid- to late July, she said. In each case, symptoms began with erratic behavioral changes, followed by incontinence and dehydration. A host of tests for medical conditions and toxic exposures failed to identify a culprit. And no autopsy has yet been performed on either of the men who died.

"As far as we know, these individuals did not have any contact with one another"

(That's even scarier)

Del Rio