Ohio records 60 West Nile virus cases in humans

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s con­firmed num­ber of West Nile virus cases has increased to 60, more than dou­ble the human cases doc­u­mented just three weeks ago, state health offi­cials said.

Two peo­ple — a 76-year-old man in south­ern Ohio’s Hamil­ton County and an 87-year-old man in Cuya­hoga County in north­east Ohio — have died in what offi­cials are call­ing one of the worst sum­mers for the mosquito-borne virus in the state and across the nation, The Colum­bus Dis­patch reported Fri­day. Statewide, 47 peo­ple have been hos­pi­tal­ized, with symp­toms that began between July 10 and Aug. 28.

Nation­wide, 1,993 cases have been reported to fed­eral health offi­cials, an increase of 403 in a week, accord­ing to the U.S. Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Prevention’s weekly update. Deaths from the dis­ease this year have hit 87, up from 66 reported a week earlier.

One in five peo­ple who become infected with the virus will develop West Nile fever, accord­ing to the CDC. Symp­toms include fever, headache, tired­ness and body aches.

As of Fri­day, 36 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties had con­firmed West Nile cases in humans, mos­qui­toes or horses, Tessie Pol­lock, a spokes­woman for the Ohio Depart­ment of Health, said Fri­day. Cuya­hoga County had reported the most human cases of any county, with 21, Pol­lock said.

Drought and heat in Ohio this year increased the preva­lence of the West Nile-carrying Culex mos­quito, Pol­lock said. The mos­quito prefers to breed in organ­i­cally rich water sources, such as water in the process of evap­o­rat­ing from ditches and catch basins where leaves and other mat­ter accumulate.

“We knew early on that this was going to be a bad year,” she said.

Health offi­cials rec­om­mend that peo­ple use insect repel­lent or wear long sleeves and pants while out­doors, espe­cially at dusk and dawn. They also advise elim­i­nat­ing mos­quito breed­ing sites such as water-holding con­tain­ers and other stand­ing water.

The deci­sion on whether to spray for mos­qui­toes is left up to local areas, and Colum­bus Pub­lic Health in cen­tral Ohio’s Franklin County — where four human cases have been reported — increased its spray­ing to six days this week. The agency typ­i­cally has sprayed three or four days a week, spokesman Jose Rodriguez said.

The agency focuses on areas where mos­qui­toes caught in traps have tested pos­i­tive for the virus.

Colum­bus has found 110 pools of mos­qui­toes test­ing pos­i­tive for West Nile virus this year, com­pared with 12 pools of pos­i­tive mos­qui­toes in Colum­bus and nearby Wor­thing­ton last year, said Luke Jacobs, a sec­tion chief with the city’s divi­sion of envi­ron­men­tal health.

Hamil­ton County Pub­lic Health in Cincin­nati is not spray­ing, but mon­i­tors mos­quito traps daily through­out the county, which has reported five human cases.

“When we catch a pos­i­tive pool, we are there imme­di­ately,” agency spokesman Mike Samet said.

He said the depart­ment also edu­cates the pub­lic on prevention.

John McLeod, direc­tor of envi­ron­men­tal pub­lic health ser­vices for the Cuya­hoga County Board of Health, says costly spray­ing is “usu­ally a last resort.”

That agency works to edu­cate the pub­lic, mon­i­tors traps and treats storm water catch basins and ditches with a sub­stance to pre­vent mos­quito lar­vae from devel­op­ing into adults, McLeod said.

Posted by AP News on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.