- CHICAGO (Reuters) - Six new
deaths from West Nile virus were reported on Tuesday in Tennessee, Illinois
and New York, bringing the probable U.S. death toll from the mosquito-born
disease to 37.
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- The two new deaths in Illinois -- those of a 71-year-old
man and a 79-year-old woman -- raised the state's death toll to nine, more
than reported so far in any other state. Both deaths were in south-central
Illinois.
-
- Tennessee reported its first probable West Nile deaths,
those of two elderly men in the Memphis area and a third in the northwest
corner of the state.
-
- Earlier, New York officials reported that the death of
a 73-year-old man during the weekend was believed to have been from the
virus, the first death this year in the city where the brain-swelling disease
was first detected in the United States three years ago.
-
- The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said
the man, who lived in the borough of Queens, was hospitalized Friday and
died (on) Sunday from encephalitis, a severe brain inflammation caused
by the virus.
-
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has officially
blamed West Nile for at least 31 deaths this year in the United States.
The newly reported cases would raise the toll to 37.
-
- The disease was previously unknown in the Western Hemisphere
until its appearance in 1999.
-
- New York officials said three other elderly people have
reported illnesses after being infected by the West Nile virus in the city
this year. All three are hospitalized, one in critical condition, the others
stable.
-
- "As the death of an otherwise healthy 73-year-old
shows, West Nile virus can have tragic consequences for its victims,"
Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said in a statement. He advised New
Yorkers over 50 years of age to take precautions against mosquitoes, which,
if infected with the virus, spread it when they bite humans.
-
- U.S. officials still were investigating whether four
patients in Georgia and Florida may have been infected with West Nile virus
via organ donation.
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- The donor, a Georgia resident, was in a car accident
and received multiple blood transfusions before her death, raising concern
she may have acquired the virus from donated blood. No cases of West Nile
transmission through blood transfusion have ever been recorded.
-
- Jesse Goodman, a deputy director in the FDA's Center
for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said the chances of getting the
virus from donated blood were very remote and far outweighed by the benefits
of a needed transfusion.
-
- "If you need a blood transfusion, which can be life-saving,
or an organ transplant, the benefit to you of the transfusion is much,
much higher than the small possible risk of transmitting West Nile. It's
important to keep that in perspective," Goodman said on NBC's "Today"
television show.
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- Blood banks turn away people who feel sick, which should
prevent anyone made ill by West Nile from giving blood. But most people
infected with West Nile show no symptoms.
-
- If the West Nile virus poses a significant risk to the
blood supply, officials will have to look at ways to screen for it, Goodman
said. "I'm confident if we need that, we can move in that direction,"
he said.
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