Deadly infection claims San Francisco VA lab worker

State and federal health officials are investigating how a rare and virulent bacteria strain appears to have killed a young researcher at a VA hospital's infectious diseases lab in San Francisco, setting off alarms that the man's friends and fellow researchers may have also been exposed.

The 25-year-old laboratory researcher at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center died Saturday morning shortly after asking friends to take him to the hospital. For the week and months before his death, he had been handling a bacteria linked to deadly bloodstream infections at the VA hospital's Northern California Institute for Research and Education, said Peter Melton, a spokesman for the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The man, whose name has not been released, was working with fellow researchers to develop a vaccine for a bacterial strain that causes septicemia and meningitis. Hours after he left work, however, the germ that he was studying took his own life.

"He left the lab around 5 p.m." Friday, said Harry Lampiris, chief of the VA hospital's infectious diseases division. "He had no symptoms at all."

Two hours later, however, the Treasure Island resident reported to his girlfriend he was feeling sick with a headache, fever and chills, Lampiris said. Not until Saturday morning did the symptoms grow worse with a body rash. He asked friends to take him to the hospital but fell unconscious in the car and had no

pulse by the time he arrived. He died later in the morning.

"It starts out so nonspecifically people don't think it's anything serious," Lampiris said.

"Obviously, he didn't suspect it."

The San Francisco Department of Public Health is trying to identify everyone who had close contact with the worker during the time he was infected, said city health spokeswoman Eileen Shields.

His friends and co-workers are getting preventive antibiotics, as are some 60 health workers who treated him at the hospital, Shields said.

The bacteria spreads through respiratory exposure such as sneezing and coughing or kissing.

Cal-OSHA confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating the lab worker's death and whether the lab where he worked followed safety protocols.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also is helping state and city authorities determine what occurred, a spokeswoman said.

"We're not certain how this death happened, but hopefully the investigation will turn up some answers to help prevent it from ever happening again," CDC spokeswoman Alison Patti wrote in an email.

A state laboratory has confirmed that the San Francisco worker was infected with the Neisseria meningitidis bacterium, the same germ he had been handling at the laboratory for weeks and months before his death. It also confirmed that the rare strain he and fellow researchers were studying - Serogroup B - was the same one found in his body.