Venkat Mani; Expert In Infectious Diseases

Venkat Mani, 60, a physician who specialized in infectious diseases and was president of the medical staff at Southern Maryland Hospital Center, died of complications from diabetes Aug. 30 at the Clinton hospital.

Dr. Mani treated Joseph P. Curseen, the Brentwood postal worker who died from anthrax in October 2001. Curseen, whose breathing problems had been diagnosed by another physician as resulting from the flu, did not mention that he worked for the Postal Service, Dr. Mani told Susan Dentzer of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Curseen returned to the hospital and died six hours later. Blood tests completed after his death pointed to anthrax, Dr. Mani said.

"In this case, there were so many organisms on the smear that we could directly see it. When you have a person with blood infection, and you see the bacteria on the blood smear, the patient will almost never survive. By that stage the bacteria is winning the battle," Dr. Mani said.

Born in Tamil Nadu, India, Dr. Mani graduated from Madras University and received a medical degree from Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Pondicherry, India. He immigrated to the United States in 1970 and trained in internal medicine at George Washington University, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University. He earned a diploma from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1973.

Dr. Mani taught at Howard University and GWU until 1975, when he launched his practice in Clinton. He established the Mid-Atlantic Symposium's Infectious Disease Update in 2003 at Southern Maryland Hospital Center.

He devoted most of his career to the hospital and served as president of the medical staff from 2003 to 2005. He was chairman of the infectious disease committee since 2000. In Washingtonian magazine polls, area physicians four times named him one of the "top doctors" in the region.

He enjoyed traveling and visited more than 30 countries and all seven continents. He also was a political aficionado and a self-described pundit. He was a member of Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham since its founding in 1976.

Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Gita Mani of Alexandria; three children, Nithya Mani, Nishant Mani and Nandita Mani, all of Alexandria; two brothers; and one sister.