Unknown Illness Forces SLU Emergency Room To Divert Patients

From KSDK Newschannel 5's website, excerpted below:

"Unknown Illness Forces SLU Emergency Room To Divert Patients"

An unknown illness in a patient caused doctors and health officials to shut off access to the emergency room at St. Louis University Hospital.

Around noon Thursday, a female was admitted with symptoms including a fever and a rash. Doctors initially suspected it might be Monkeypox, a rare disease that is less deadly than the similar Smallpox.

However, after faxing pictures of the woman's symptoms to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the CDC gave SLU Hospital the go-ahead to re-open the emergency room.

Doctors now say it is highly unlikely that the woman has monkeypox, but they don't yet know what she does have. The patient is being kept in isolation.

The emergency room started accepting patients again a few hours after patients were diverted.