West Nile Virus – The Fear Factor

You sit down to watch a little TV after dinner and the local news anchor announces, “Lancaster County man dies from West Nile virus. Story at 11.” You weren’t thinking about West Nile virus all day; now you can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a disease transmitted by mosquitoes and you’ve got a little itchy bump on your arm that might be a mosquito bite. You can’t help wonder: what are the chances…?

It’s scary to confront the unfamiliar. News stories provide basic information, but in the interest of time or ratings, sometimes a balanced perspective may be sacrificed. West Nile Virus is a legitimate healthcare concern, one that health authorities are taking seriously. That’s why educating the public about the illness and the real risks involved is so important.

Chances are you’ve heard a great deal about dead birds testing positive for the virus. West Nile Virus is caused by a virus that mostly affects birds. Health authorities track the spread of the disease by the number of infected birds found. Mosquitoes bite an infected bird, pick up the virus and pass it on to more birds or to humans. Though a person may be bitten by an infected mosquito, the chance he or she will actually get the disease is an estimated one in five.

Symptoms include joint aches, fever, headache, and swollen lymph nodes. The symptoms can be treated with acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Most people recover without problem. A small number of infected individuals will develop infection in the brain and spinal cord with symptoms including neck stiffness, muscle weakness and convulsions, confusion or coma and yes, even death. However, the fear factor created by persistent media coverage of West Nile is more likely to spread through our communities than the illness itself.

Since West Nile Virus is a relatively new disease in the United States, we do not yet have the years of experience with West Nile that we now have with HIV, for example. In the early 1980’s when AIDS was first recognized, it was constantly part of the evening news. People had the misconception that simply touching people with HIV or associating with those at risk of HIV could transmit the disease even though medical authorities assured us it was not possible. We stopped being as frightened as time passed and we understood that our own personal risk of contracting the disease was not as significant as we might have feared.

1976 marked an outbreak of a respiratory infection in Philadelphia at the Belleview-Stratford Hotel during a convention of the American Legion. Legionnaires were dying and, at the time, no one could determine the cause of this apparently infectious disease. Powerful antibiotics could not save those infected and many died. Rumors were rampant; even Legionnaires who were not at the convention were concerned they might somehow become ill. We now know that Legionnaire’s disease is fairly common and treatable. Today, a news report of an outbreak of the disease scarcely raises an eyebrow.

Nationwide there have been fewer than 2,000 cases of West Nile virus this year and fewer than 100 deaths. By comparison, about three thousand people die each year from Legionnaire’s disease. The flu, which is much more contagious than West Nile, infects 20 million Americans annually with 20,000 deaths. Another way to look at it: about as many people die from West Nile virus as from lightning strikes.

All of this is not to say you shouldn’t take precautions. Even though your risk of contracting or dying from West Nile virus is low, you can reduce your risk by taking a few precautions. Use an insect repellant with DEET applied sparingly to exposed skin and clothing when outside. Minimize outside activity at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are more likely to bite, and eliminate standing water from pools, gutters, tires, wheelbarrows and any place else where mosquitoes can breed.

If you develop aches, fever, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes and headache, chances are you have something other than West Nile virus, but see your doctor if your symptoms progress. For more information on the illness see:

http://www.hmc.psu.edu/healthinfo/uz/westnile.htm or

Pennsylvania’s West Nile site: http://www.westnile.state.pa.us/