PNEUMONIA

The Army is trying to figure out what is causing a rash of serious pneumonia cases, including two fatalities, among troops serving in the Iraq war.

A six-person team of specialists traveled to Iraq on Friday to investigate 15 cases of pneumonia so serious that patients had to be put on ventilators to breathe and were evacuated from the region, the Army Surgeon General's Office said.

Though 15 cases were considered serious, about 100 cases have been diagnosed since March 1 among troops that began deploying late last year to the Persian Gulf area.

In the Army, pneumonia cases serious enough to warrant hospitalization happen in about 9 of 10,000 soldiers per year. Given the number of troops deployed, the 100 cases "do not exceed expectations," the Surgeon General's Office said.

If the expected infection rate is 9 per ten-thousand soldiers, then up to 135 cases might be expected over the course of an entire year.

Here we have 100 cases in 5 months...seems slightly high to me.