Officials look for common factors among rash victims

Rooms where the rash first occurred were to stay closed today.
BELOIT -- Beloit Elementary and West Branch Middle School were to reopen today as school and state and local health officials await test results that may show the cause of a rash that has affected pupils and adults.
Dr. Scott R. Weingart, schools superintendent, said Thursday that a fourth-grade classroom and the building's elementary music room will remain closed. Those are the two rooms where the rash first occurred last week.
Those rooms and the school were checked Thursday by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The Ohio Department of Health also is investigating.
Results of the tests made by the OEPA, with a more sensitive device than one used in previous tests, will not be available until early next week, said Mike Settles, OEPA spokesman.
Settles said the department used a "photoionization detector" to take air samples. It measures volatile organic compounds that may be in the environment.
Search continues
Richard D. Setty, director of environmental health for the Mahoning County Health District, said officials are searching for something in common among the victims that could have caused the rash. To date, except for the school, no commonality has been found in searches and testing by the county health department, Mahoning County Haz-Mat team, and the Ohio and U.S. EPAs.
The rash has been easily treated in both youth and adults. Twenty-seven girls and 10 boys developed rashes, according to officials.
Kristopher Weiss, a spokeswoman for the ODOH, said representatives from its environmental health and infectious disease control offices were looking at questionnaires filled out by both those who had the rash and those who did not. The goal here also is to find something in common with those who got the rash, Weiss said.
What's being done
The state health officials were to be at the school again today.
The Mahoning County Health District developed a questionnaire for the interviews based on one used to determine why hundreds of schoolchildren in 27 states developed rashes between Oct. 4, 2001, and June 3, 2002.
That ratio of female to male is "consistent with the national outbreak," said Matthew Stefanak, health commissioner of Mahoning County.
"It appears there is some environmental issue at the school, because the children improve when they are away. But, there is no 'smoking gun' yet. I don't even have a guess" as to the cause, Setty said.
Weingart said he will issue a statement late today on any developments.
"For a lot of reasons, we need to get back to school," the superintendent said.
One of those is that the Beloit Elementary must make up at least four days of school because of closings; the high school and Knox and Damascus schools must make up one day; and the middle school must make up two days.