A horse in Fairfield County, Connecticut has tested positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis, also known as EEE. Multiple towns in Connecticut and on Long Island have mosquitoes test positive for West Nile and EEE.
Three more people are now infected with West Nile virus in Suffolk County, bringing the total to 11. The patients from Brookhaven, Islip and Huntington were over the age of 50 and recovering at home.
Dr. Andrew Handel, an infectious diseases expert with Stony Brook University, spoke to WSHU’s Maya Duclay about how to stay safe.
WSHU: Can you tell me what is West Nile virus, and how can someone contract the virus?
Dr. Andrew Handel: West Nile virus is a mosquito transmitted infection, meaning that you can get it through the bite of a mosquito. It tends to peak in summer and early fall when the mosquitoes are most active, and can lead in a small group of people to encephalitis or an infection in the brain.
WSHU: How does this differ in any way from the Eastern Equine Encephalitis?
AD: Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile virus actually look quite similar in terms of what symptoms a person may experience and how we would, you know, treat them if they were to come to the hospital. But it turns out that West Nile virus is a bit more common than Eastern Equine Encephalitis, though both of them are still quite rare. If we were to evaluate a patient in the hospital who has symptoms of encephalitis, we would send off both tests at the same time, because you really can’t distinguish between one and the other, the symptoms, again, are essentially exactly the same between the two infections, and so there’s no way, when you’re taking care of a patient to say if they have one infection or the other other than through diagnostic testing that can find the virus itself and help us to make the diagnosis that way.
WSHU: What should someone do if they suspect that they’ve contracted the virus, and what does the treatment look like?
AD: Anyone who has symptoms of a more severe West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis infection would, by the nature of the symptoms themselves, present to the hospital. So typically, you know, people who get diagnosed with those infections will experience severe headaches, fevers, sometimes seizures, changes in behavior, as they may be very, very sleepy and difficult to actually to wake up. And so again, any of those things would typically cause someone to prevent to a hospital. In terms of the treatment, there’s no specific treatment for either of these viruses.
We provide what’s called supportive care, meaning that we treat the symptoms themselves and help the immune system fights off the virus. So if a patient has seizures, then we treat those seizures. If they’re having difficulty breathing because of it, then we treat those symptoms. If they’re having fevers or dehydrated, then we treat those things as well. But again, there’s no specific treatment for the virus itself.
WSHU: Okay. And then how can people stay safe and avoid getting infected?
AD: So when you’re thinking about these infections, again, you want to remember that they’re transmitted by mosquitoes, so you want to take different precautions to avoid that from happening. Of course, it’s really impossible to be a person living on Long Island and not at some point get bitten by a mosquito, but for personal protective measures, you want to avoid walking in areas that are prone to having lots of mosquitoes when they’re most active, so that’s at sunrise and sunset.
You also want to make sure to wear long sleeve shirts and long pants, and also to apply mosquito repellents so that they don’t bite you.
The other thing you want to make sure to do is to remove any standing water from around your house. The mosquitoes don’t actually travel very far, so if you dump any standing water where the mosquitoes may have laid their eggs, so in things like toys or planters or tires around the home, you can actually make it less likely that the mosquitoes will bite you while you’re outside your own home.
WSHU: Regarding the insect repellent, is there a certain chemical or something to look for in the repellent that is most favorable?
AD: So we typically recommend a chemical called DEET and usually in 20-30% concentrations. But the FDA and the CDC recommends a whole slew of different insects repellents that people can use depending on their preferences, but DEET itself has been shown to be quite effective at preventing mosquitoes from biting and also ticks from biting and other insects as well.
WSHU: What have cases been like here on Long Island?
AD: So this year, we are seeing a bit of a higher rate of infection than we’ve seen in past years, though, I do want to underscore that the infections are still rare. So when they look in the mosquitoes themselves, the Department of Health goes out and tests mosquitoes to see if they’re infected with West Nile virus. On average, they usually find about 100 per season. This year, as of the end of August, they found 200 and again, there’s still some time left in the season, so that is quite a bit higher than typical in terms of human cases. Again, there are a few more than we typically see, especially for this time in the season. But again, you know, often that can mean that there are, you know, on higher years when there are more infections happening that can look something like 10 to 20 infections in the area,
WSHU: Okay and then when is the season?
AD: So it’s usually from throughout the summer and then early fall. So anytime you can think of when mosquitoes are biting so often, that means the end from the early summer, from June or July through the end of September or early October. …
Infections are uncommon, and we don’t want people to have too much anxiety about it. Infections with West Nile virus, although they can be severe, most people who have those infections have little or very mild symptoms, so we don’t want to have too much alarm about it, but it’s important to take those personal protective measures to avoid mosquito bites when we can.
WSHU: And then also, I understand that you are a pediatric doctor. Is there anything that you can offer from a pediatric standpoint?
AD: Diagnosing West Nile virus infections in children are actually quite rare. The people who usually have more severe symptoms and are therefore diagnosed with those symptoms tend to be elderly individuals or people have severe problems with their immune system, and in children who are otherwise healthy, it’s quite rare to diagnose West Nile virus, so fortunately, it’s not something that we need to be particularly worried about in children.
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Publish date : 2024-09-13 01:05:00
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