- BOSTON (Reuters) - Four states
on Friday reported a total of six new deaths from the mosquito-borne West
Nile virus, at least four of them people in their 80s or 90s.
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- Massachusetts and Pennsylvania reported their first deaths
this year from the disease, while Illinois authorities said two more people
had died in their state and Texas officials reported their second West
Nile death this year -- a 96-year-old Houston man who died on Sept. 6.
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- The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said an
87-year-old Boston woman and an 81-year-old man from the Boston suburb
of Weymouth had died, and in Pennsylvania Physician General Rob Muscalus
reported the death from West Nile of an 87-year-old man from Allegheny
County.
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- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
which has yet to confirm some of the cases, has blamed West Nile for at
least 54 deaths this year in the United States.
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- At least 42 states from Maine to California and the District
of Columbia have reported West Nile occurrences this year. The virus has
also been detected in parts of Canada.
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- The West Nile death toll in Illinois now stands at 16,
the highest for any one state.
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- Separately, the office of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy played
down remarks the Vermont Democrat made earlier this week in which he said
the government should look at whether the disease was "a biological
weapon" being tested on unwary U.S. citizens.
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- A spokeswoman for the senator said the remarks during
a radio interview in his home state had been a casual comment in the context
of a discussion of anthrax attacks.
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- She said Leahy, the target of an anthrax attack in 2001,
had no plans to press for any formal investigation.
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- The virus is common in Africa and Asia but did not appear
in the United States until a 1999 outbreak that killed seven people in
New York.
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- The U.S. government said on Friday it was providing an
additional $6.3 million to 25 states, three cities and the U.S. capital,
Washington, to help fight West Nile.
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- The CDC has awarded a total of about $35 million to states
and cities so far this year to fight the West Nile virus, according to
a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.
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- This year's outbreak of West Nile began in the southern
United States and has been slowly spreading north and west.
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- Officials emphasized that the risk of becoming ill from
a mosquito bite is very low, noting less than 1 percent of bites from mosquitoes
infected with West Nile cause severe disease.
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- Most people bitten by a West Nile-carrying mosquito have
no symptoms and those who do normally suffer little more than flu-like
illness. But the virus can cause fatal brain inflammation in the elderly
and people with weak immune systems.
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