- ATLANTA (Reuters) -- Federal
health officials said on Tuesday the West Nile virus had spread more quickly
since resurfacing in the United States this summer, prompting fears of
another record outbreak of the deadly mosquito-borne disease.
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- The virus, which killed 284 people and infected about
4,000 others in the United States and Canada in 2002, has been detected
in mosquitoes, birds, horses and humans in 32 U.S. states in 2003, according
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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- Only about 20 states had reported similar activity at
this time during last year's outbreak, which was the worst since West Nile
first surfaced in the Western Hemisphere in 1999.
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- "It's too soon to predict the shape of the epidemic,
but the signs all indicate that there is reason to anticipate a problem,"
CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said in a press conference in Atlanta.
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- The CDC said it had confirmed infections in three people
in Texas and in another person in South Carolina this summer.
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- Gerberding recommended that Americans take steps to drain
mosquito-breeding areas in their yards and wear protective clothing and
insect repellents when outside, especially in the hours between dusk and
dawn.
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- Most people who are bitten by a West Nile-carrying mosquito
suffer nothing more than headaches and flu-like symptoms, but the elderly,
chronically ill and those with weak immune systems can develop fatal encephalitis
and meningitis when infected.
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- U.S. health officials have been particularly concerned
with the virus' ability to spread through blood transfusions and organ
transplants, which has the potential to make the disease far more common.
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- It is estimated that up to 200,000 Americans may have
been exposed to West Nile since 1999, when it killed seven people in the
New York City borough of Queens. An estimated 4.5 million Americans receive
blood or blood products annually.
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- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in cooperation
with blood banks, laboratories and drug manufacturers have spearheaded
development of two new tests designed to screen blood for the virus.
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- The FDA also has issued tougher guidelines on blood donation
to since last year's outbreak.
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- In addition to new tools designed to ferret out the virus,
U.S. researchers are working on a vaccine that they hope would provide
immunity to West Nile.
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- © Reuters 2003. All rights reserved.
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