19 Soldiers in Iraq Have Rare Pneumonia

A rare and sometimes deadly pneumonia has hit 19 U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq, and Army medical investigators cannot explain the cause, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Researchers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said two of the soldiers had died from the rare illness, called acute eosinophilic pneumonia, or AEP.

No common source was found for the outbreak from March 2003 to March 2004 among soldiers in Iraq. The study covered only that time period and there was no indication whether cases had continued to show up since.