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She said that 98 percent were hospitalized, half required admission to the intensive care unit, and a third required ventilation. The majority, Dr. Layden said, vaped a product including T.H.C., the high-inducing chemical in marijuana, but a majority also used a “nicotine-based product,” noting that there were “a range of products and devices.”

“The focus of our investigation is narrowing but is still faced with complex questions,” said Ileana Arias, the C.D.C.’s acting deputy director for noninfectious diseases.She added: “We are working tirelessly and relentlessly.”

Dr. Mitch Zeller said particular concern is developing around products that are jury-rigged by vaping retailers, or tampered with or mixed by consumers themselves. “Think twice,” he said, urging consumers to avoid vaping products purchased off the street or purchasing informally mixed or made devices.

Public health officials have underscored one fundamental point: that the surge in illnesses is a new phenomenon and not merely a recognition of a syndrome that may have been developing for years.

Before health officials in Indiana confirmed the third death from a severe lung illness linked to vaping, two other people — one in Illinois, the other in Oregon, both of whom were adults — have died from what appears to be the same type of illness, health officials in those states have said. State and federal health officials are scrambling to find a cause, possibly a particular chemical or adulterant contained in some vaping products.

What looked like a few scattered cases in mid-June has become a full-fledged and widespread public health scare, leaving some otherwise healthy teenagers and young adults so severely ill that they have been placed on ventilators.

Those afflicted typically show up in emergency rooms with shortness of breath after several days of flulike symptoms, including high fever.