West Nile Cases In Randall Double

The number of West Nile virus cases in Randall County doubled from Wednesday to Thursday, and the county is taking action.

“We’re taking it very seriously,” County Judge Ernie Houdashell said. “We’re planning on spraying stagnant water areas.”

The Texas Department of Health Services reported Wednesday five people in the county had contracted the virus. Two are the mild version and three are the more serious, neuroinvasive version. Also, one horse died Monday from the disease, and another is infected.

By late Thursday, that total had risen to 10, said Matt Richardson, public health director for the city of Amarillo.

The breakdown of serious versus mild was not immediately available.

“The good news is there are no reported fatalities,” Richardson said.

There have been no reported cases in Potter County.

Across the state, there have been 894 West Nile cases reported this year. About half are the serious type. There have been 34 deaths, mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, according to Health Services.

The county has arranged for some mosquitoes caught Wednesday night to be tested for the disease.

“We don’t know the results,” Houdashell said.

The area with the most reported impact is west of Interstate 27 and south of McCormick Road, he said. But there might be people with the disease that don’t know it yet.

“Up to 80 percent of people infected with West Nile virus will have no symptoms and will recover on their own. However, some cases can cause serious illness or death,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. “People over 50 and those with weakened immune systems are at a higher risk of becoming ill if they become infected with the virus.”

It takes three to 14 days for symptoms to appear. There is no specific treatment, according to the CDC.

Study: 5 Things you should know about West Nile Infection

After the Aug. 20 rains, the city began spraying standing water. It uses larvicide to kill the developing mosquito before it becomes a flying insect.

“Other than a few perennial areas, all that water has dried up,” City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said.

Crews sprayed some of the remaining standing water on Thursday. “We have not seen the problems they’ve seen around the state,” Atkinson said. “Yesterday we had four mosquito complaint calls.”

Report: Maximum cases of West Nile infection expected this year.

The neuroinvasive version of West Nile can cause high fever, neck stiffness, headaches, disorientation, convulsions, muscle weakness and paralysis, according to the state health department’s website. The milder form causes fever, aches and sometimes a skin rash and swollen lymph glands.

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West Nile Epidemic Leads To Many Deaths

West Nile disease -- a mosquito-borne illness -- has reached epidemic proportions in Michigan, particularly in older suburbs that ring metro Detroit and Grand Rapids, state health officials warned Wednesday.

Michigan's 80 cases this summer, including four deaths, rank the state as the sixth highest in the nation with the problem, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those at the greatest risk from West Nile are people older than 50, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems, such as kidney disease and cancer patients.

Michigan and the five other states -- Texas, South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana -- account for 70% of the nation's West Nile cases, the CDC said Wednesday. Only Alaska and Hawaii have no reports of the disease so far.

Michigan's cases put it on track to match the state's worst West Nile outbreak in 2002, when 644 people contracted the disease and 51 died, said Dr. Dean Sienko, interim chief medical executive for the Michigan Department of Community Health, speaking Wednesday in a telephone briefing with the news media.

"This is something people need to pay attention to, particularly over the age of 50," who are most vulnerable to developing serious health problems from the disease, Sienko said.

Both he and CDC officials described the outbreak this year as an epidemic. They said cases, both in Michigan and nationwide, are likely to surpass the number reported in any year since 1999, when the disease was first reported in the U.S. near New York City's JFK International Airport.

Dry, warm weather appears to have contributed to the rising number of cases and will continue to pose problems as long as nighttime temperatures remain above 50 degrees -- ideal mosquito-breeding weather, health and science officials say.

Study: 5 Things you should know about West Nile Infection

Michigan's 80 cases required hospitalization of 62 people, and four died, all in metro Detroit, Sienko said. He said he expects the number of cases to continue to climb for another month, because it typically takes up to two weeks for symptoms to occur after a person is bitten.

The latest death, reported this week, was an 86-year-old Wayne County woman. All four Michigan deaths have been among people older than 50.

Nationwide, 1,590 West Nile cases have been reported, including 66 deaths, according to the CDC. Texas, particularly the Dallas area, accounts for nearly half of the reports. There, officials are conducting pesticide spraying in communities that have asked to be included in prevention efforts.

Report: Maximum cases of West Nile infection expected this year.

Spraying is considered effective, but it is less common in many states, including Michigan, because many communities say they can't afford it.

One exception is Warren, where Mayor Jim Fouts ordered spraying of the city this summer.

Fouts also has increased monitoring of sources of standing water, such as swimming pools on foreclosed properties. Owners face fines of up to $1,000 for letting stagnant water remain on their property.

Fouts said he ordered the spraying of Warren's 1,200 storm drains because he recalled several deaths and serious lingering health problems among Warren residents during the 2002 West Nile outbreak. Each spraying costs about $20,000.

"It's better to be penny-wise than pound-foolish," he said.

As many as 80% of this year's West Nile cases in Michigan have been in the tri-county area, particularly suburbs built after World War II with more densely populated communities and storm drains and street catch basins where mosquitoes breed, said Ned Walker, a Michigan State University microbiologist and West Nile expert.

Suburbs with higher numbers of West Nile cases this year include Allen Park, Berkley, Royal Oak, Westland, Redford Township and Dearborn Heights, he said.

Walker called storm drains "little mosquito factories" for the single species, Culex pipiens, also called a northern house mosquito, that "appears to be the sole carrier" of West Nile disease. He said the species likes small areas where water pools, such as tires and flowerpots, nooks of trees and gutters.

Dr. Steve Halstead, a veterinarian with the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development, said that although horses and other animals can contract the virus, Michigan has only one case so far this year, in an unvaccinated horse in Montcalm County. There is a vaccine against the virus for horses, but not for humans.

Walker said the Culex mosquito travels about a mile from its breeding grounds. Females lay 150-200 eggs in their short 21- to 28-day life cycle. Some hibernate during the winter in basements, electrical transformers and other spots, he said.

"People need to be scared somewhat," he said. "The mosquito population with this infection is at its peak right now, this week. We'll see lots more human cases."

EXPLORE:   Health      West Nile Virus      Prevention

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Maximum Cases Of West Nile Infections Expected This Year

The nation is heading toward the worst outbreak of West Nile disease in the 13 years that the virus has been on this continent, federal health authorities said Wednesday.

But it is still unclear where and how far cases will spread. Dallas declared an emergency last week, and West Nile deaths have been concentrated in Texas and a few nearby states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma, as well as South Dakota.

So far this year, there have been 1,118 cases and 41 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, director of the agency’s division of vector-borne diseases, said Wednesday in a telephone news conference.

“That’s the highest number of cases ever reported to the C.D.C. by the third week of August,” he added. “And cases are trending upward.”

Because it takes some time for symptoms to develop and cases to be reported, those people were probably infected by mosquitoes two to three weeks ago, he said. The agency expects cases to increase through the end of September. In 2003, there were 264 deaths.

It takes three days to two weeks after a bite for symptoms to come on, but they may then be rapid and overwhelming.

Dr. Petersen described his own 2003 bout with West Nile.

“I was out for a jog, and within one mile I went from feeling normal to where I could barely walk,” he said.

Only about one infection in 150 becomes serious enough for the patient to need hospitalization — usually when the virus gets into the brain and spinal cord. But 10 percent of those hospitalized die, and other patients are left paralyzed, comatose or with serious mental problems. A recent study by doctors in Houston found kidney disease high among survivors.

There is no vaccine, and no drug that specifically targets the virus, so health authorities advise people to avoid getting bitten.

As of noon Wednesday, Texas had recorded 25 West Nile deaths, Dr. David Lakey, the state’s health commissioner, said during the same conference call.

The Dallas area has too many miles of roads to cover with mosquito-killing spray trucks, so the state has spent about $3 million — virtually all from the federal government — flying pesticide spray planes at night, Dr. Lakey said.

It is not clear why this is turning into the worst year nationally since the virus was discovered in New York City in 1999, nor why it is particularly concentrated in the Dallas area, Dr. Petersen said. Hot weather is known to increase transmission, but much of the country has suffered from a heat wave and severe drought has gripped the Midwestern Corn Belt.

Some experts theorize that a wet winter followed by drought creates ideal conditions for the culex mosquitoes that spread the virus. They lay their eggs in dirty, nutrient-filled pools like those left when rivers dry up, and they can survive winters with the virus by hiding in tunnels or sewers. Entomologists from HomeTeam Pest Defense in Dallas have, for example, advised residents not to overwater their lawns, which can create pools of standing water.

The virus now exists everywhere in the contiguous 48 states, and all 48 — except Vermont — have found it in local mosquitoes or birds this year. Birds act as a multiplier for the virus, which is then transmitted by mosquito species that bite both birds and humans.

Generally outbreaks begin in the Southern states and move north with warmer weather. Though much of the country experienced heat waves this year, it is not foreordained that all states will have serious outbreaks.

The spread depends on other factors, including what percentage of birds in an area have never been infected and therefore can become multipliers. (In birds and people, survivors develop lifelong immunity.)

“You can have a lot of cases in one area and not in a place just 100 miles away,” Dr. Petersen said

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