Peter Moen, CAN-Victim

Widow of West Nile victim urges vigilance
Oct 13 2005 09:16 AM CDT
CBC News
The widow of a Regina man who died of the West Nile virus says people need to take the disease more seriously.

Eighty-three-year-old Peter Moen died in hospital last month.

His wife says the illness came as a shock, because her husband was always active and healthy.

"Every summer at the cottage at Regina Beach, we'd have a few leaks. Up he'd be on the top of the roof, carrying the tar pail. Right up till a couple weeks before he took ill," she said.

When he got sick, the doctor said it was probably just the flu, but Moen knew her husband had been bitten by mosquitoes at their cabin.

"It was very rapid. Very, very rapid. One day he was absolutely, perfectly healthy himself. The next morning, he went for coffee, to the Golden Mile, which he did every day to meet the boys," she said. "He came home, he was flat on his back."

Within weeks, Peter Moen was dead – along with another elderly Regina man who also had the virus.

Moen's wife says she wants people to do more to protect themselves.

Saskatchewan had 60 West Nile cases this year, up from five in 2004, but far fewer than the 947 cases recorded in 2003.

According to Ross Findlater, the province's chief medical health officer, the biggest factor is actually the weather.

"There was some cool weather from the beginning of August to the middle of August, which was quite important in keeping the mosquitoes down. And then it did warm up later on, but by then many mosquitoes were already getting ready for the winter anyway."

Findlater says wearing bug spray is a good practice, but local mosquito control programs are even more important.

Those programs remain a big challenge for rural areas and resorts, he said.