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A general look of the mark of the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, where New Jersey State Health Department confirmed the 18 boxes of adenovirus, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018, in Haskell, NJ others sick. The facility has been admitted to new patients until the outbreak ends. Adenoviruses usually just cause mild illnesses. But officials say this is particularly severe because it is affecting medically fragile children with severely compromised immune systems. They also note this strain has been particularly associated with disease in communal living facilities. (Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
TRENTON, N.J. – The latest on a fatal viral outbreak in New Jersey (all times local):
5:40 p.m.
New Jersey showed up Sept. 26, two weeks before the state of an outbreak.
State health officials were notified Oct. 9 of the adenovirus infections at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation.
But state health commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal told a news conference Wednesday that it's always difficult to know exactly when an actual outbreak begins.
Seven patients, mostly children, have died this month as a result of being infected with the virus. Eleven others are recovering.
The health commissioner says that all infections in the facility are respiratory, or ventilator unit.
Some pediatric patients at the rehab center have been there most or all of their lives.
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4:50 p.m.
The head of a New Jersey nurses union says staff nurses at a rehab center where a viral outbreak has killed seven patients complained about staffing shortages, which they say might lead to poor infection control.
Deborah White is President of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union. She says in a statement that the 70 nurses represented by the union are working at the spread of the adenovirus at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation "under difficult circumstances." She notes what the nurses say are dangerous staffing shortages.
At least 18 pediatric patients at the facility have been infected with adenovirus that has caused many deaths, including many children and at least one young adult.
The facility's 2016 inspection noted a shortage of clinical nursing assistants that ranged from about 6 percent to 12 percent of the required coverage during several days of monitoring in March. Later inspections did not note the problem.
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1:40 p.m.
New Jersey's health commissioner says it's unlikely to viral outbreak at a pediatric rehabilitation center that left seven "medically fragile"
Dr. Shereef Elnahal said in an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday.
He says that because the adenovirus is at least 18 pediatric patients at the Wanaque Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, in Haskell.
The health department says most of those who died under 18. At least one is a young adult. Health officials had been describing all those infected as children, which is the way the health facility describes its pediatric patients even though it says.
Federal inspectors over the past few years
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9:30 am
Another child has died following a severe viral outbreak in New Jersey rehabilitation center for "medically fragile children," bringing the death toll to seven.
There have been 18 cases overall of adenovirus at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Haskell, about 30 miles northwest of New York, the State Health Department said. The 227-bed, for-profit facility for children and elderly residents.
The agency had said Tuesday that six children had died this month. But the center said it.
The strain of stroke is usually associated with acute respiratory illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Health Department has not released the names or the ages of the victims.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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