Woman's death linked to strep

An Upper St. Clair woman whose sudden death prompted health officials to check for West Nile virus died from a virulent strep infection, not from the mosquito-borne disease that recently spread to western Pennsylvania, the Allegheny County coroner said Thursday.

Four separate blood samples tested by the state Health Department in Harrisburg showed that Pearl Simmons, 42, died of beta hemolytic group A streptococcus, a common type of bacteria, said Dr. Cyril Wecht, Allegheny County coroner.

Dr. Bruce Dixon, who heads the Allegheny County Health Department, said this type of bacteria is "ubiquitous" and rarely fatal.

"Ms. Simmons was a healthy, vigorous woman," he said. "This is an extremely rare event."

Simmons, married with three children, died Wednesday at Allegheny General Hospital, North Side, where she was taken earlier that day with flu-like symptoms. She was a community education specialist at Children's Hospital in Oakland, taught classes on parenting, and was a published writer and poet.

"She was a very special person who touched a number of lives," her husband, Reid Simmons, said yesterday. "I just want people to know what a special person she was. She was eternally the optimist, always elegant, a very refined person with fine taste in things. She was incredibly caring and giving, not only with her family, but everyone who knew her.

"Her children were her life," added Simmons. The couple's children are Noah, 12; Rachel, 10, and Joshua, 7.

"She taught classes throughout the city and was a wonderful presenter. She helped so many parents. … she had a gift with children and could really relate to them," said Brenda J. Gregg, Children's director of community relations and community health services and Pearl Simmons' supervisor.

"But she always arranged her schedule to work on weekends and nights so she could focus on being a stay-at-home mom," Gregg said.

Dave Mologne, a neighbor of the Simmons family, described Pearl Simmons as "a super woman. She lived for her children and was an exemplary woman, an all-around good person."

Reid Simmons said investigators do not know how his wife contracted strep, but said it is an easy infection to get. Simmons said initial reports that his wife had gone camping over the weekend were incorrect. He and his wife had traveled to Canada last Friday to pick up their son from summer camp.

Strep is transmitted by hand-to-mouth contact and through the air, but is not highly contagious, said Joe Dominick, Allegheny County chief deputy coroner. Strep produces a toxin in the blood that can be fatal, he said. Beta strep is a common bacteria that, if caught early, can be treated with antibiotics, doctors say.

Because its symptoms — such as sore throat, body aches and fever — mimic those of the flu, it is difficult to diagnose, said Dr. Donald M. Yealy, vice chairman of the emergency medicine department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"You wouldn't know right away that it's this disease," Yealy said. "It's very reasonable that a physician would not suspect it."

Yealy said there is no simple blood test to detect the bacteria, which can live in the respiratory tract, intestine and elsewhere in the body without causing problems. If left untreated, beta strep can multiply through the blood stream and infect organs throughout the body. It most commonly causes sepsis, an infection in the bloodstream. It's deadly in rare cases.

No human cases of West Nile virus have been confirmed in Allegheny County. More than a dozen birds have died of West Nile, including one at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

West Nile is transmitted through the bite of infected mosquitos. Most people exposed to the virus do not get sick. Those at highest risk are the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.

Less than 1 percent develop the serious illness known as West Nile encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. The symptoms include fever, headache, body aches, skin rash and swollen lymph glands.