ORFOLK, Va., Feb. 20 — Local and state health departments are investigating the deaths of five children younger than 8 from unknown causes in the last five days.
Four of the children lived in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area, and the fifth lived in Richmond, the Virginia Department of Health said. Virginia's State Health Commissioner, Dr. Robert B. Stroube, while saying he did not know the cause, said, "it is very unlikely that this is due to bioterrorism."
"We are concerned about the recent deaths of these children and we are rapidly investigating to determine the cause," Dr. Stroube said.
State health workers said the deaths could be a coincidence, but because of terrorism concerns, they would vigorously investigate.
"At a time when the nation is at a heightened state of alert, the Virginia Department of Health will take even more seriously our normal monitoring of illness and fatality, looking for patterns and linkages," said Lisa Kaplowitz, Deputy Commissioner for Emergency Preparedness and Response. Awilda A. Carter, the mother of the first child to die, 2-year-old Maria Carter, said that on the eve of her daughter's burial, a funeral home sent the body back to the Norfolk Medical Examiner's Office for more tests. She said doctors there wanted to test the girl's nasal passages.
Ms. Carter said her daughter had been running a fever and occasionally vomiting. She said doctors at a local hospital first said the girl had an ear infection, but, on a second trip, hospital workers said the illness was influenza. After the autopsy, doctors told the Carter family they thought a virus had attacked the girl's heart muscle, Ms. Carter said.

"She was running around and playing," Ms. Carter said. "She kept having a fever, but she never got more sick." Ms. Carter said her daughter fell asleep on the couch Sunday and never woke up.