- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
epidemic of West Nile virus, which has killed 94 people this year and made
nearly 2,000 sick, has stretched the resources of the U.S. public health
system, officials said Tuesday.
-
- The virus has also thrown up a few surprises -- spreading
faster than predicted, causing a previously unseen polio-like disease in
some, and getting into donated blood and organs, the officials told the
U.S. Congress.
-
- Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said the agency received $29 million this year
to spend fighting West Nile virus. "That money was used to shore up
surveillance and tracking in birds, she told a hearing of the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee.
-
- Although the agency had responded well to the epidemic,
Gerberding said she thought "the system was stretched."
-
- West Nile, first diagnosed in a Ugandan woman in 1937,
is common in Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East but only appeared
in the United States in 1999. It spread to much of the country this year,
as well as Canada and the Cayman Islands.
-
- "The population we are most concerned about are
the elderly people who are at the highest risk of the severe form of the
disease," Gerberding said.
-
- Birds serve as the host of the West Nile virus, which
is spread by mosquitoes to other birds as well as to people, horses and
squirrels.
-
- "Most mosquitoes that transmit this virus live in
suburban back yards," Gerberding said. She advised people to wear
long sleeves and pants, use insect repellents and drain standing water
from birdbaths and outside containers.
-
- Dr. Jesse Goodman, deputy director of the Food and Drug
Administration's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said it
was important to develop screening tests to protect the nation's blood
supply and scarce donor organs.
-
- "Certainly from the FDA's point of view this is
a priority," Goodman told the hearing."
-
- RISK SMALLER THAN BENEFIT OF BLOOD
-
- The risk of catching West Nile virus is smaller than
the benefit of a lifesaving blood or organ donation, Goodman said. But
he admitted the FDA was surprised when four people became infected after
receiving organs from a single donor.
-
- Five others may also have caught the virus from transfusions
with infected blood and warnings went out to blood banks to ask donors
if they have suffered from fever, body aches or other symptoms of viral
infection.
-
- West Nile virus only makes about 20 percent of those
infected sick and most have a very minor illness. This means people may
unconsciously pass on the disease without knowing they have been infected.
-
- "If people can have the disease without any symptoms,
we take it seriously," said Goodman, adding that this is unlikely.
-
- Based on what is known about the virus, people who do
not become ill should clear it from their systems quickly. Experts believe
such people have lifelong immunity from the virus.
-
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of
Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said that based on patterns with related
viruses like yellow fever and dengue, the epidemic would wax and wane,
possibly infecting fewer people next year.
-
- As more healthy children and young adults are infected
without becoming sick, they could create a growing pool of people immune
to the virus.
-
- "It is quite likely we will see a decrease,"
said Fauci. "It is extremely unlikely that the impact of West Nile
virus would even get onto the same radar screen as...flu and HIV/AIDS.
It's not going to wipe out scores of millions of people. But to say this
is trivial would be far underestimating it.
-
- Fauci described the polio syndrome is "new and alarming,"
although it is extremely rare. At least four patients, all in their 50s,
have shown symptoms of the syndrome, developing partial paralysis. One
is now on a ventilator.
-
-
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