Four people in a party of 16 came home from a two-week Grand Canyon raft trip sick. Others who floated the Colorado River this season say they are in the same boat, and the National Park Service has opened an investigation.
In a statement, the agency said it “has received reports of individuals experiencing symptoms including fever, chills, fatigue, headache, difficulty breathing, muscle or body aches or soreness, joint or bone pain, or localized swelling” after river trips through the park. Its Office of Health and Safety is working with public health partners to look for a source. It did not say how many reports it has received or when the trips took place.
Anyone who took a Grand Canyon river trip this year and developed such symptoms is asked to contact the park service’s public health office.
What the rafters describe
The accounts come largely from a Facebook group, Grand Canyon Private Boaters. Rafters say their trips began as early as mid-May and that they fell ill after getting home. Paddling Magazine reported the cluster first.
Steven King wrote on July 1 about the group of 16 that set out in mid-June. Symptoms included fever, chills, fatigue and pneumonia, he said, and some were worse: fluid in the lungs, loss of consciousness. “One person briefly lost consciousness in their doctor’s office, then was subsequently hospitalized,” he wrote. Another companion developed a cellulitis-like infection on a bruised shin that “feels like a broken bone.” An X-ray showed no break, King said, and the leg was getting worse. One person began rabies shots as a precaution without showing rabies symptoms.
Matthew Wappett went to an emergency room with a swollen knee and what he called “bone-crushing” joint pain after a two-week trip in mid-May. Antibiotics helped the knee infection, he said, but pneumonia and flu-like symptoms followed and lasted more than a month. After he posted, he found other rafters from different groups with the same lingering symptoms.
The mosquito theory
Both King and Wappett mentioned mosquitoes. King’s group saw them on several nights and no ticks. “We slept out every night and did get some mosquito bites,” Wappett wrote on July 2.
Facebook user Dan Squire relayed the view of an infectious disease epidemiologist, a friend of his, who said the pattern, with mosquito bites and no stomach symptoms or tick bites, sounded viral. Dengue and chikungunya both fit, the expert said, and hantavirus should be ruled out. Both viruses are uncommon in the United States, Squire wrote, though Arizona has mosquitoes able to carry them. A traveler arriving with the virus could pass it to local mosquitoes. And patients with no recent international travel, he added, “are highly unlikely to be tested for these viruses in Arizona.”
None of that is confirmed. The Arizona Department of Health Services did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, and the park service has not named a cause.
Sources
- Grand Canyon mystery illness reportedly triggers NPS investigation after rafters report alarming symptoms
- National Park Service Investigates Mystery Illness Among Grand Canyon Rafters
