Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
A total of 1,590 U.S. cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, have been reported through late August this year, the highest human toll reported since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
Not as much as the toxiplasmosis parasites.
To clarify. Mice who get the toxiplasmosis parasite (found in cat poop) stop hiding from cats, and walk out into the room to get eaten. The parasite (a single-celled protozean) also infects the brains of humans. While it usually causes no symptoms and the effects of it are unknown, it is not unreasonable to think it would make humans more sympathetic towards cats.
So, if I refer to "We", I may be speaking of myself and my brain parasites. We have combined into a higher organism, one which can more ably serve our feline masters. We now seek new hosts to serve the masters.
It's already the worst year ever in Texas, they said. So far this year, 1,993 cases have been reported to federal health officials, up from 1,590 reported the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly update of outbreak data. A total of 87 people have now died from the disease, compared with 66 reported one week ago. The disease has been reported in people, birds or mosquitoes in 48 U.S. states, so far absent only in Alaska and Hawaii. About half of all human cases are in Texas, the CDC said.
Of the nearly 2,000 cases reported to the CDC this year, 1,069, or 54 percent, are of the severe neuroinvasive form of the disease, which can lead to meningitis and encephalitis. The milder form of the disease causes flu-like symptoms and is rarely lethal. Texas, the outbreak's epicenter, has had 40 deaths and 495 neuroinvasive cases this year, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
About a quarter of the cases have been in Dallas County, he said. "This is our worst year ever in Texas," Lakey said. The previous Texas record was in 2003, when there were 40 deaths and 439 neuroinvasive cases. Texas has had 1,013 cases overall this year, Lakey said. CDC figures - which sometimes lag behind state data - show that South Dakota has the next-highest number, with 119 cases and two deaths.
More than 70 percent of the cases have been reported from Texas, South Dakota and four other states: Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Michigan, the CDC said. The CDC said the number of cases so far this year is the highest reported to federal health officials through the first week in September since the disease was first detected in the New York City in 1999. The worst outbreak overall occurred in 2003, with 9,862 cases and 264 deaths for the full year. The disease is thought to have originated in Africa.
MORE
A total of 1,590 U.S. cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, have been reported through late August this year, the highest human toll reported since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
Cases of West Nile virus set record, deaths soar: CDC | Reuters
My county issued a health warning about this yesterday because of all the standing water from Isaac. Budget cuts have lessened mosquito control programs. With all the rain on the Gulf Coast this is probably only going to get worse.
A total of 1,590 U.S. cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, have been reported through late August this year, the highest human toll reported since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
Cases of West Nile virus set record, deaths soar: CDC | Reuters
My county issued a health warning about this yesterday because of all the standing water from Isaac. Budget cuts have lessened mosquito control programs. With all the rain on the Gulf Coast this is probably only going to get worse.
they just sprayed pretty close to where i am. i'm not sure making DDT illegal was a good idea.
A total of 1,590 U.S. cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, have been reported through late August this year, the highest human toll reported since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
Cases of West Nile virus set record, deaths soar: CDC | Reuters
My county issued a health warning about this yesterday because of all the standing water from Isaac. Budget cuts have lessened mosquito control programs. With all the rain on the Gulf Coast this is probably only going to get worse.
As of Sept. 11, the CDC had received reports of 2,636 cases of West Nile virus disease, with 118 deaths, up from 1,993 cases and 87 deaths last week. The virus has been detected in humans in all but five states and has been found in humans, birds, or mosquitoes in every state except Hawaii and Alaska. Slightly more than half of the reported cases (1,405) involved neuroinvasive disease. That's the highest number of such cases reported through the second week of September since the virus emerged in the U.S. in 1999.
And the number of neuroinvasive cases -- the best indicator of the size of a West Nile epidemic -- is expected to meet or exceed the previous record of 2,946 in 2002, Lyle Petersen, MD, MPH, director of the CDC's division of vector-borne infectious diseases, said Wednesday on a conference call with reporters. The same trend is expected for the number of deaths, keeping the current outbreak on track to be the worst on record, Petersen said.
Although there were more total cases reported at this time of the year in 2003, Petersen said that that was an artifact of excessive testing for non-neuroinvasive disease by a single state that year. "One good piece of news is that, based on historical data, ... we've turned the corner on the epidemic," he said. "We're hopeful that the worst of the outbreak is behind us."
CDC: West Nile Outbreak Still Set to Break Record
Seems my neighbor isn't risking it either, but he's risking his neighbors.
I know it goes against the conservative grain, but I would report his ass. Or at the very least, buy some mosquito dunks and toss them in his pool to prevent the larvae from becoming mosquitoes.Next door neighbor stopped using his in-ground pool a couple months ago.
And there it sits... turning brown and murky. And breeding skeeters.
West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne disease usually found in temperate and tropical regions. While many cases are mild and have no symptoms, severe disease symptoms can include headaches, high fever, neck stiffness, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness and paralysis.
Kosovo confirmed its first fatality on Wednesday, saying the victim was a woman from central Kosovo who died on Sept 14. Macedonia's health officials said on Thursday one woman had died and two other people were infected with the virus.
A spokesman for the Kosovo Health Ministry told Reuters on Thursday two other people who died recently were also suspected of having the same virus, but the cases had not been confirmed with laboratory blood tests. The United States is currently experiencing one of its worst outbreaks of West Nile virus since 2003.
In Serbia, three people have died and 35 were hospitalized since mid-August. "This is the first time the West Nile virus has been officially registered in Serbia," the country's Department for Public Health said in a statement. All the infected people were over 50 and had other chronic diseases, it said. Serbia's western neighbor Croatia has registered five probable cases of the virus but no deaths.
Source
