NEW ORLEANS — A large number of people along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts are developing a condition that some have dubbed "Katrina cough," believed to be linked to mold and dust circulating after Hurricane Katrina.
Health officials say they are trying to determine how widespread the problem is. There are suggestions that it is popping up regularly among people who have returned to storm-ravaged areas, particularly New Orleans.
Dr. Dennis Casey, one of the few ear, nose and throat doctors seeing patients in New Orleans, called the condition "very prevalent." And Dr. Kevin Jordan, director of medical affairs at Touro Infirmary and Memorial Medical Center in downtown New Orleans, said the hospital had seen at least a 25% increase in complaints regarding sinus headaches, congestion, runny noses and sore throats since Katrina.
In most cases, Casey said, patients appear to be "allergic to the filth they are exposed to." Those allergies make the patients more susceptible to respiratory illness, including bacterial bronchitis and sinusitis.
Among the public, the condition is known alternately as "Katrina cough" and "Katrina's revenge" -- much to the consternation of physicians who feel the monikers paint a needlessly alarming portrait of the environment.
"It started out as a sore throat and scratchy eyes. That turned into a cold, and that turned into a cough again, and that's where it stayed," said Christophe Hinton, 38, who was on the way to a medical clinic Thursday to address an illness that had hung around for weeks, impervious to over-the-counter cold medicine.
Hinton, who lives in the French Quarter, drove a taxi before Katrina but now is working with a chain-saw crew, cutting up toppled trees that need to be hauled away.
"Everybody's got this thing," he said. "Everybody I know."
Among healthy people, the condition is not considered serious and can generally be treated with antihistamines, nasal sprays or, in the case of bacterial infections, antibiotics.
"A lot of the patients I've been seeing, what they want to know is whether I see black, furry stuff inside of them. The answer is no," Casey said. "I think the air quality is safe. I think it's noxious. But is it dangerous? No."
But the condition could be more serious for people whose health is otherwise compromised -- for example, organ transplant patients; people who are undergoing chemotherapy; or people who suffer from emphysema, asthma, chronic bronchitis or other ailments.
