Doctors in Cambodia, Solved the Mystery illness

First alert in Cambodia Authorities

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (CNN) -- The cause of a mysterious illness that has claimed the lives of more than 60 Cambodian children has been determined, medical doctors familiar with the investigation told CNN on Wednesday. 

A combination of pathogens, disease-causing micro-organisms, is to blame for the illness, the World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Cambodian Ministry of Health, has concluded, the doctors said.The pathogens include enterovirus 71, which is known to cause neurological disease; streptococcus suis, which can cause infections like bacterial meningitis in people who have close contact with pigs or with pork products; and dengue, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.

But over the past four months doctors inside the busy hospital have been faced with something that is not routine at all; a mysterious syndrome killing children so fast nearly all of the children infected with it die within a day or two of being admitted to the hospital.

"I'm very confident for the reason of the epidemic," said Dr. Phillipe Buchy, chief of virology at the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia and one of the doctors who cracked the case. of the doctors who cracked the case."The first thing that goes through your mind is, is this one of the usual suspects you haven't detected before?" said Dr. Arnaud Tarantola, chief of epidemiology and public health at the Institut Pasteur. "If it is, has it mutated, or changed in a way that it causes more severe disease? Or is it something completely new?"

On the steroids issue, Tarantola said, "When you have a dying child, you try to use what you have at hand, and they were right to try that." But, he acknowledged, "from the cases we reviewed, almost all of the children died, and almost all of them had steroids."Adults' well-developed immune systems usually can fend off the virus, but children are vulnerable to it, according to the CDC."It looks like (EV71) has emerged strongly, probably because it hadn't circulated with the same intensity in the past years," Tarantola said.

In the last hours of their life, the children experienced a "total destruction of the alveola(e) in the lungs," Richner said. Alveolae are the air sacs where oxygen enters the bloodstream. CNN’s Tim Schwarz contributed to this report.

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