Mosquito plague spreads to 4 more states

West Nile virus spread yesterday to Tennessee, Connecticut, Kansas and Nebraska, with positive signs of infection in birds or humans in nearly every state in the continental U.S. reported this year, a survey by WorldNetDaily shows.

In addition, California's first cases of horse infections were reported in both Riverside and San Bernardino counties as officials prepared for a second round of pesticide spraying in Fontana, where six humans contracted the mosquito-borne virus.

Four horses – three in Riverside and one in San Bernardino counties – were infected with West Nile and three were euthanized. A Riverside County horse that received the two-shot vaccination series survived, said Steve Lyle of the Department of Food and Agriculture.

In Fontana, three trucks sprayed a 3-square-mile area with the pesticide resmethrin during a 90-minute operation at dawn Friday. Last week's application cut the number of mosquitoes roughly in half, said San Bernardino County vector ecologist Wakoli Wekesa. Officials planned another dawn spraying of the area today.

Ten human cases of West Nile have been confirmed in San Bernardino, Riverside, and Los Angeles counties so far this year. All the victims recovered.

The State of Connecticut's Mosquito Management Program officials said yesterday an infected crow was found earlier this month, the first such positive test this year in the state.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment also confirmed he presence of West Nile virus in a bird in Sedgwick County, the first confirmed report in the state 2004.

WNV is carried by birds and transmitted by mosquitoes that bite the infected birds, which then transmit it to horses and people.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, two more people have become affected by mild cases of West Nile virus.

The New Mexico Department of Health reported a woman from Bernalillo County contracted an infection in Arizona, while a Santa Fe County woman was most likely infected near her home.

They join a San Juan County man who was infected with a mild case earlier this year.

So far, Arizona leads the Southwest and the country with 20 human cases. Colorado has four cases, and Texas has none.

In Nebraska, test results on a blue jay collected in Kearney County indicate the first bird in Nebraska to test positive for West Nile Virus this year.

In Tennessee, an unvaccinated horse in Fayette County was the state's first reported casualty of West Nile virus in 2004.

The mosquito-borne virus is having the biggest impact now in Arizona, with 20 cases including one fatality.

West Nile started infecting people in early May and had reached seven states as of Tuesday, according to the CDC's June 25 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. But virus-carrying mosquitoes or infected animals have now been found in nearly every state.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 32 West Nile virus infections of humans so far this year, compared with none until July last year, health officials said.

A report released yesterday by wildlife health experts at the University of California, Davis, warns that West Nile could pose a serious threat to some species, especially rare and endangered birds, and encourages officials to broaden existing monitoring efforts to track the virus's movement in the state.

Prepared by a team led by Walter Boyce, director of the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, at the request of the California Department of Fish and Game, the report predicts where West Nile virus poses the greatest risk to wildlife by examining mosquito abundance in relation to bird species that "amplify" the virus and the location of rare amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

As WND and Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin first reported some U.S. health officials are beginning to question why the U.S. strain of West Nile virus is deadlier to humans and birds than anywhere else on the planet – with the exception of Israel.

West Nile virus, which is transmitted to people by mosquitoes who fed on infected birds, killed 246 Americans and infected 9,862 last year. This is by far the worst human toll anywhere in the world at any time since the virus' discovery in Uganda in 1937.

A 74-year-old Phoenix women died last week of encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. The virus was transmitted through a mosquito bite.

About 20 percent of West Nile victims report flulike symptoms. About 1 percent of the time, they develop encephalitis, meningitis or permanent paralysis. The elderly and those with weakened immune systems are most susceptible.

U.S. health officials believe the West Nile virus has mutated into an illness far deadlier to human beings in the United States – but they don't know why.

Interestingly, the U.S. strain appears almost identical to only one other strain in the world – the one found in Israel.

Fewer than 1 percent of the people bitten by an infected mosquito get severely ill, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In most cases, those infected never get sick or suffer mild symptoms like fever, headache, nausea, body aches and a light skin rash.

The disease first appeared in the United States in 1999 in New York state and has since expanded westward. It has killed more than 560 people in the last five years.

The highest risk of infection for people and horses is from mid-July to mid-September.

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