The Health Ministry has launched an investigation into the sudden deaths in the past month of four babies and the severe illness of two others.

The cases, some of which were reported to the ministry in recent weeks by hospitals, including Schneider Children's Medical Center and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, involved serious neurological and cardiac damage to the babies, but in most of the cases, no reason has been determined as yet for the illnesses or the deaths. The initial ministry probe has turned up no connection among all six cases, although the ministry is still seeking one.

The Health Ministry released a statement to the press Monday that Schneider Children's had reported three recent cases of unusual illness among young children in the past three weeks. Of these, a 14-month-old girl, Ella Hanina, of Even Yehuda, died of unknown causes. The child arrived at the hospital with extreme brain damage that led to her death. Her parents donated her organs.

Doctors believe Hanina had constracted the common intestinal virus Coxsackie B, which doctors say can cause severe damage in rare cases. However, physicians at Schneider are not sure the virus was the cause of the child's death.

Two other children are currently hospitalized at Schneider an 18-month old girl from Ramat Gan and a boy from Bnei Brak 2 years and 9 months old. Both are suffering from various neurological conditions, and one suffered cardiac arrest.

The hospital said there had been another case of a 14-month-old boy who died suddenly, but in an autopsy he was found to have been suffering from an infection of the heart muscle, said Dr. Tommy Sheinfeld, head of intensive care at Schheider, who explained that this is "not common, but known cause of death in babies."

According to the Health Ministry statement, following the report from Schneider, it began an investigation in all of its districts, and turned up two more suspicious cases, one of a 15-month-old girl with an infectious disease who had died in the Dana Children's Hospital at Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center, and an 18-month-old girl from the community of Rekhasim in the north, who died suddenly at home. No other similar cases have been located in any other hospital in the country.

According to ministry statistics, approximately 170 children die each year in Israel from illness or accidents. Of these cases, 10 children between ages 1 and 4 die of infectious diseases.

Dr. Itamar Grotto, national director of public health in the Health Ministry, told Haaretz Monday that the epidemiological probe had been looking into possible causes for the six cases, such as the presence of the babies in the same places, possible proximity to animals or even trips abroad to the same destintions. No such connections, however, had come up. "We are now focusing on lab tests of body fluids, and on autopsy. One of the main possibilities under investigation is the presence of the common intestinal virus Coxsackie B."

Scheinfeld said Coxsackie B causes diarrhea and rash, but in rare cases might also lead to infection of the pericardium or meningitis. He said viruses in this group are common and in 98 percent of cases cause only slight illness among the thousands of babies that contract it. Schneider Children's Medical Center said it currently has two other babies hospitalized with severe convulsions, in whose spinal fluid Coxsackie B has been clearly identified, but that they had recovered. The hospital said the virus is commonly found in kindergartens and day-care centers.

Scheinfeld told Haaretz Monday that, "it is very possible that this is a coincidental accumulation of cases that usually extend over a whole year, and that this time occurred over a three-week period. Sometimes there are cases of death and illness among babies caused by unknown reasons, but that does not mean there is an epidemic or that the cases are connected. It is highly likely that there is no common source for the illness among the children, such as the food they ate, although this must be investigated by the Health Ministry."

Scheinfeld added, however, that, "it is possible that the reasons will never be known, even after the investigation has been carried out. No special steps should be taken other than the usual steps.