August 7, 2005
Last modified August 7, 2005 - 2:22 am
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West Nile's wake: Hysham man still recovering from '03 case
By DIANE COCHRAN
Of The Gazette Staff
Kenneth "Pete" Clay will never know if he got the bug that got him.
"People say, 'Do you remember the mosquito when it bit you?'" said Clay, who contracted West Nile virus two years ago.
He doesn't, and he also doesn't know what happened to the infected skeeter after it bit him - did he smack it, or did it merrily buzz off in search of its next meal?
Clay, 72, was one of 227 Montanans with confirmed cases of West Nile virus in 2003. No human cases have been reported in Montana so far this year, but on Thursday mosquitoes in Sheridan and Prairie counties tested positive for the disease, marking the official start of the 2005 West Nile season.
Clay, a retired Hysham ranch hand, developed the most severe form of the disease, including a life-threatening inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. He nearly died during a 48-day stay at St. Vincent Healthcare.
He left the hospital a near-paraplegic. With physical therapy, he slowly graduated from a wheelchair to a walker and then to leg braces and a pair of silver canes.
"I got to thinking about my life and all the horses I got bucked off, and all the cows and bulls that run over me," Clay said. "Then a little old mosquito comes along. It doesn't make sense, does it?"
Fewer than 1 percent of people who contract West Nile get as sick as Clay did, according to Dr. Doug Moore, chief medical officer for the Yellowstone City-County Health Department.
For the few people who develop symptoms, "it might feel like having the summer flu," Moore said.
But 80 percent of people who get bitten and infected with the virus probably will never know it.
"Most times, the body aborts the infection," said Dr. Todd Damrow, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.
For that reason, an accurate assessment of the disease's presence in Montana is not possible.
Last year, six human cases of West Nile virus were reported. Three of those people were sick enough to require hospitalization. In addition, 11 horses and 31 birds tested positive for the virus in 2004.
That marked a drastic drop from 2003, when 227 people, 193 horses and six birds tested positive. Eighty-six people were hospitalized that year, and four died.
West Nile was detected in Montana for the first time in 2002, when two people tested positive.
A widely available vaccine for horses might explain the drop in equine cases, but health officials are at a loss to explain why so many fewer people got the disease last year than the year before.
And they don't know what to expect this year.
"We can't let our guards down as we enter into early fall," Moore said.
Cases of West Nile usually turn up in August and September, when the species of mosquito that carries the disease is most prevalent.
Clay contracted the virus in late August 2003. At first, he attributed feeling sick to eating too much fried chicken.
But within a couple of days, it was obvious that something else was wrong. In addition to being queasy and vomiting repeatedly, Clay felt so weak that he could not dress himself.
His family drove him to the emergency room in the middle of the night.
"I was so sick at times I don't remember it," he said. "It affected every part of my body."
He developed meningitis, a dangerous swelling of the tissue around the brain and spinal cord, which paralyzed his legs.
After two years of physical therapy and regular exercise, Clay walks with a full-length brace on his right leg, an ankle brace on his left leg and a cane in each hand. He struggles to keep his balance.
"I can see where I've improved since I started walking with the canes, but it seems like I've hit a plateau and stuck there," he said. "It seems like nothing came back naturally. Everything I gained I had to work for."
He cannot stand up without pushing off with his arms, and, when he is seated, he uses his hands to reposition his right leg.
Little research has been done on the long-term effects of West Nile, and Clay doesn't know what the future holds.
"It's just a learning experience," he said.
Diane Cochran may be reached at 657-1287 or dcochran@billingsgazette.com.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Mary Tosta, CA
West Nile: 49-year-old shares story
By Laura Florez
Staff writer
Mary Tosta came down with the West Nile virus.
It's a phone call no one wants, but this year in Tulare County, 11 such calls have been placed.
Mary Tosta, 49, of Visalia got one of them.
After doctors visits, a three-day hospital stay and weeks of suffering head-aches, dizziness, fever, fatigue, body aches, vomiting and diarrhea, Tosta's phone rang July 12.
The sound broke the silence that filled the living room where she had been resting.
On the line was Dr. Daniel Boken, the infection control director for hospitals in Tulare County. Tosta was the latest person to test positive for West Nile virus in Tulare County.
"God, I couldn't believe I had it," she said later. "You hear about it, you see mosquitoes, but you don't think you are going to get it."
Tosta, who nearly four weeks later is still struggling through bouts of weakness, is one of 11 people recovering from the virus in Tulare County.
The virus is transmitted to humans and animals through a mosquito bite. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds.
Most people who have it don't want to talk about it. But Tosta says it's important for people to know that West Nile virus is in Tulare County. She wants people to be able to get help right away.
"I want people to know about it," she said. "People need to know."
Although most people infected with the mosquito-borne virus won't experience any illness, between 10 percent and 15 percent will have mild to moderate symptoms, such as fevers, head-aches and body aches. An even smaller number —less than 1 percent —will develop serious neurological illnesses, such as encephalitis and meningitis.
Tosta was among those who suffered symptoms of meningitis. For weeks, she wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She was too tired and too sick to continue working eight-hour shifts as a medical coder at Visalia Medical Clinic.
"It's like someone's talking to you, but you just sort of feel dizzy and you can't understand," she said. "I wanted to read my work, but nothing made sense."
Tosta left work for 21 days and divided her time among medical appointments, hospital visits and resting on the living room couch — the same couch where Tosta was resting that July day when she got the call.
"I was kind of relieved to know it was [West Nile virus] and not anything worse," she said.
Although there is no treatment for West Nile virus, Tosta has been told by doctors that she will most likely recover.
Still, her life hasn't returned to normal. She rests and drinks plenty of fluids.
"Some people say it's going to take a while," she said. "I can't do what I normally would do. I can't come home and do things like make dinner and vacuum. I can't cook, take the dog for a walk and visit the grandkids."
Since late June, when she experienced her first symptoms of the virus — headaches and dizziness — bursts of energy have come and gone.
The problem started, Tosta believes, one morning when she woke up with a mosquito bite on her neck.
Mosquitoes weren't uncommon around the southwest Visalia homes of Tosta and her fiancé, Glenn Pennington.
They live in an area that was slowly but steadily becoming an active West Nile virus area. Dead birds and several pools of West Nile-infected mosquitoes had been found there.
The couple would spray the mosquitoes, but they never realized West Nile virus could be present inside their home.
Once Tosta's symptoms began to progress —she began to feel extremely sensitive to touch, was dehydrated, vomiting, getting chills, had muscle aches that made it hard for her to walk and a fever of 102 degrees — the couple began to get worried.
"I had read in the newspaper about West Nile virus in the area. I was thinking that's what it was," she said.
Pennington said Tosta's sickness changed her.
"She was so sick I couldn't believe it," he said. "It was kind of scary not knowing what she had. Usually she's not a sitting around type person, but she was kind of like a zombie-type person."
Tosta saw a doctor and was then sent to Kaweah Delta Hospital. During a three-day stay, she received fluids and underwent testing — a spinal tap and scans of her brain and body.
A day later, while resting at home, she got the call that she had West Nile virus.
County health officials announced her case last month to the public along with three others, bringing the county's total to five —the number has since jumped to 11, surpassing last year's four human cases.
Doctors told Tosta to rest, drink fluids and take it week by week. Tosta has.
After taking three weeks off work, she last week returned to work, doing a four-hour shift.
This week, she has graduated to a six-hour shift, but at the end of it, she's exhausted and heads to the couch for a nap.
"I'm still not 100 percent, but I'm getting there," she said. "I'm still tired and fatigued. If we go do something like go to the grocery store, a half hour later I'm thinking, 'Come on, hurry up. I'm getting tired. We've got to go.' "
Summer trips to the beach and to the mountains are out.
She's just not up to them, she says, not yet.
Her 49th birthday, too, has come and gone.
She didn't have the energy for a party, but some family and friends stopped by. One friend left her a gift of insect repellent and wipes with DEET.
Anytime Tosta ventures outside these days, she puts them to use.
But Tosta's biggest gift, she says, is one she often took for granted.
"I'm able to get up without a headache — that's awesome," she said. "It really takes a toll on your body."
# The reporter can be reached at lflorez@visalia.gannett.com.
Originally published August 6, 2005
By Laura Florez
Staff writer
Mary Tosta came down with the West Nile virus.
It's a phone call no one wants, but this year in Tulare County, 11 such calls have been placed.
Mary Tosta, 49, of Visalia got one of them.
After doctors visits, a three-day hospital stay and weeks of suffering head-aches, dizziness, fever, fatigue, body aches, vomiting and diarrhea, Tosta's phone rang July 12.
The sound broke the silence that filled the living room where she had been resting.
On the line was Dr. Daniel Boken, the infection control director for hospitals in Tulare County. Tosta was the latest person to test positive for West Nile virus in Tulare County.
"God, I couldn't believe I had it," she said later. "You hear about it, you see mosquitoes, but you don't think you are going to get it."
Tosta, who nearly four weeks later is still struggling through bouts of weakness, is one of 11 people recovering from the virus in Tulare County.
The virus is transmitted to humans and animals through a mosquito bite. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds.
Most people who have it don't want to talk about it. But Tosta says it's important for people to know that West Nile virus is in Tulare County. She wants people to be able to get help right away.
"I want people to know about it," she said. "People need to know."
Although most people infected with the mosquito-borne virus won't experience any illness, between 10 percent and 15 percent will have mild to moderate symptoms, such as fevers, head-aches and body aches. An even smaller number —less than 1 percent —will develop serious neurological illnesses, such as encephalitis and meningitis.
Tosta was among those who suffered symptoms of meningitis. For weeks, she wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She was too tired and too sick to continue working eight-hour shifts as a medical coder at Visalia Medical Clinic.
"It's like someone's talking to you, but you just sort of feel dizzy and you can't understand," she said. "I wanted to read my work, but nothing made sense."
Tosta left work for 21 days and divided her time among medical appointments, hospital visits and resting on the living room couch — the same couch where Tosta was resting that July day when she got the call.
"I was kind of relieved to know it was [West Nile virus] and not anything worse," she said.
Although there is no treatment for West Nile virus, Tosta has been told by doctors that she will most likely recover.
Still, her life hasn't returned to normal. She rests and drinks plenty of fluids.
"Some people say it's going to take a while," she said. "I can't do what I normally would do. I can't come home and do things like make dinner and vacuum. I can't cook, take the dog for a walk and visit the grandkids."
Since late June, when she experienced her first symptoms of the virus — headaches and dizziness — bursts of energy have come and gone.
The problem started, Tosta believes, one morning when she woke up with a mosquito bite on her neck.
Mosquitoes weren't uncommon around the southwest Visalia homes of Tosta and her fiancé, Glenn Pennington.
They live in an area that was slowly but steadily becoming an active West Nile virus area. Dead birds and several pools of West Nile-infected mosquitoes had been found there.
The couple would spray the mosquitoes, but they never realized West Nile virus could be present inside their home.
Once Tosta's symptoms began to progress —she began to feel extremely sensitive to touch, was dehydrated, vomiting, getting chills, had muscle aches that made it hard for her to walk and a fever of 102 degrees — the couple began to get worried.
"I had read in the newspaper about West Nile virus in the area. I was thinking that's what it was," she said.
Pennington said Tosta's sickness changed her.
"She was so sick I couldn't believe it," he said. "It was kind of scary not knowing what she had. Usually she's not a sitting around type person, but she was kind of like a zombie-type person."
Tosta saw a doctor and was then sent to Kaweah Delta Hospital. During a three-day stay, she received fluids and underwent testing — a spinal tap and scans of her brain and body.
A day later, while resting at home, she got the call that she had West Nile virus.
County health officials announced her case last month to the public along with three others, bringing the county's total to five —the number has since jumped to 11, surpassing last year's four human cases.
Doctors told Tosta to rest, drink fluids and take it week by week. Tosta has.
After taking three weeks off work, she last week returned to work, doing a four-hour shift.
This week, she has graduated to a six-hour shift, but at the end of it, she's exhausted and heads to the couch for a nap.
"I'm still not 100 percent, but I'm getting there," she said. "I'm still tired and fatigued. If we go do something like go to the grocery store, a half hour later I'm thinking, 'Come on, hurry up. I'm getting tired. We've got to go.' "
Summer trips to the beach and to the mountains are out.
She's just not up to them, she says, not yet.
Her 49th birthday, too, has come and gone.
She didn't have the energy for a party, but some family and friends stopped by. One friend left her a gift of insect repellent and wipes with DEET.
Anytime Tosta ventures outside these days, she puts them to use.
But Tosta's biggest gift, she says, is one she often took for granted.
"I'm able to get up without a headache — that's awesome," she said. "It really takes a toll on your body."
# The reporter can be reached at lflorez@visalia.gannett.com.
Originally published August 6, 2005
Kevin Clark-Chalmette, LA
St. Bernard Parish official recovering from West Nile
CHALMETTE, La. The personnel director for St. Bernard Parish is recovering from West Nile virus. Kevin Clark is back home after ten days in the hospital.
He says his illness is a heads-up to everyone that anyone can get West Nile.
He says he was bitten while he mowed his lawn July 21, and became ill the next day. Another two days later, he was in the hospital with a high fever.
Clark said he was -NOT- wearing mosquito repellent or long sleeves and pants. He didn't even know he was bitten; a friend who visited him in the hospital pointed out two bites on his arm.
The parish mosquito control supervisor, Wil Schulte, said he suggested the blood test when Clark told him his symptoms. They were talking because Schulte wanted Clark to approve more drivers to spray for mosquitoes.
As Schulte puts it: "When you get the flu in Arabi in the summer, that ain't no flu."
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CHALMETTE, La. The personnel director for St. Bernard Parish is recovering from West Nile virus. Kevin Clark is back home after ten days in the hospital.
He says his illness is a heads-up to everyone that anyone can get West Nile.
He says he was bitten while he mowed his lawn July 21, and became ill the next day. Another two days later, he was in the hospital with a high fever.
Clark said he was -NOT- wearing mosquito repellent or long sleeves and pants. He didn't even know he was bitten; a friend who visited him in the hospital pointed out two bites on his arm.
The parish mosquito control supervisor, Wil Schulte, said he suggested the blood test when Clark told him his symptoms. They were talking because Schulte wanted Clark to approve more drivers to spray for mosquitoes.
As Schulte puts it: "When you get the flu in Arabi in the summer, that ain't no flu."
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Michael Zehar, Texas USA
West Nile victim's family warns of dangers
11:43 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 3, 2005
By KARIN KELLY / WFAA-TV
A Tarrant County family said they want to warn others about the West Nile Virus. Their loved one, a homeless man, was the county's first and only West Nile victim this year.
WFAA-TV Living on the streets, Michael Zehar's family has worried for years that the middle brother of six would be attacked. However, they never imagined a mosquito would cause this kind of suffering. It nearly killed the 42-year-old father.
It all started in June in East Lancaster where he said he remembered only about four or five mosquito bites.
After the bites, he started getting hot he said. He remembers the fever and headaches seven weeks ago. After that, he was sent to two hospitals and it has continued to escalate and lead to encephalitis, a coma and tracheotomy.
Now in a nursing home, his brother and sister-in-law aren't sure he will make it.
He was healthy before the bites and now he has meningitis and gowns and gloves are needed to visit him.
"It's getting to the point where you open the door and you're afraid to go out because you're afraid you'll get bitten by mosquitoes," said Billy Zehar, the victim's brother.
The victim's sister-in-law said she is now worried for her children
"When it comes to 9:00 at night, we make sure my kids are in," said Barbara Zehar, the victim's sister-in-law.
However, cases have decreased in Tarrant County and there are few who get as sick as Zehar.
"So, it's only about one in 100 people who get West Nile virus who end up in the hospital," said Dr. Elvin Adams, Tarrant County health director.
She also said 80 percent of the people exposed to West Nile, those bitten by West Nile Virus carrying mosquitoes, never get it. And only 19 of the 20 who do get sick actually only experience mild symptoms, much like cold or flu-like symptoms.
Those who are most at risk are the elderly and very young. No one has ever died from West Nile Virus in Tarrant County.
But the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition said there are 5,300 homeless people living on the Tarrant County. Forty percent live unsheltered and are more susceptible to West Nile Virus.
The Tarrant County Public Health Department has asked for donations of insect repellent to provide to the homeless. They said they hope a large company might come forward with the donation.
E-mail kkelly@wfaa.com
11:43 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 3, 2005
By KARIN KELLY / WFAA-TV
A Tarrant County family said they want to warn others about the West Nile Virus. Their loved one, a homeless man, was the county's first and only West Nile victim this year.
WFAA-TV Living on the streets, Michael Zehar's family has worried for years that the middle brother of six would be attacked. However, they never imagined a mosquito would cause this kind of suffering. It nearly killed the 42-year-old father.
It all started in June in East Lancaster where he said he remembered only about four or five mosquito bites.
After the bites, he started getting hot he said. He remembers the fever and headaches seven weeks ago. After that, he was sent to two hospitals and it has continued to escalate and lead to encephalitis, a coma and tracheotomy.
Now in a nursing home, his brother and sister-in-law aren't sure he will make it.
He was healthy before the bites and now he has meningitis and gowns and gloves are needed to visit him.
"It's getting to the point where you open the door and you're afraid to go out because you're afraid you'll get bitten by mosquitoes," said Billy Zehar, the victim's brother.
The victim's sister-in-law said she is now worried for her children
"When it comes to 9:00 at night, we make sure my kids are in," said Barbara Zehar, the victim's sister-in-law.
However, cases have decreased in Tarrant County and there are few who get as sick as Zehar.
"So, it's only about one in 100 people who get West Nile virus who end up in the hospital," said Dr. Elvin Adams, Tarrant County health director.
She also said 80 percent of the people exposed to West Nile, those bitten by West Nile Virus carrying mosquitoes, never get it. And only 19 of the 20 who do get sick actually only experience mild symptoms, much like cold or flu-like symptoms.
Those who are most at risk are the elderly and very young. No one has ever died from West Nile Virus in Tarrant County.
But the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition said there are 5,300 homeless people living on the Tarrant County. Forty percent live unsheltered and are more susceptible to West Nile Virus.
The Tarrant County Public Health Department has asked for donations of insect repellent to provide to the homeless. They said they hope a large company might come forward with the donation.
E-mail kkelly@wfaa.com
Monday, August 01, 2005
Della Neely, retired Exxon Chemical worker T.J. Starkey of Hammond, and former truck driver Lawson "Boogie" Threeton of Baker all say their lives have
Survivors' tales show need for West Nile vigilance
Disease can be life-altering, debilitating
By MIKE DUNNE
Advocate staff writer
It was just a little mosquito bite -- a part of life in South Louisiana most of the year.
But that little bitty bug changed the lives of hundreds of Louisiana residents since West Nile virus made its appearance in Louisiana in 2002.
Just about this time every summer, human cases of the bird flu start to pop up across the state.
Already, four people -- three from Livingston Parish and one from Iberville Parish -- have become the first human cases of the mosquito-borne disease for 2005.
Last year, there were 114 cases of West Nile and seven deaths, and in 2003 there were 122 cases and seven deaths from the disease. The year with the highest number of West Nile cases in Louisiana was 2002, when the state experienced 329 cases and 25 deaths.
For most people bitten by an infected mosquito carrying West Nile, their immune system is strong enough to fight it. Only one of five people bitten will develop flu-like symptoms. Twenty percent of those who show symptoms will have a more severe case, with paralysis, nerve and brain damage, and even death.
Some of the survivors say that people really don't realize how dramatic life can change because of one little mosquito bite.
Baton Rouge real estate agent Della Neely, retired Exxon Chemical worker T.J. Starkey of Hammond, and former truck driver Lawson "Boogie" Threeton of Baker all say their lives have been turned upside down.
"Boogie" Threeton knew at an early age what he wanted to do: drive trucks.
Today, he misses the smell of diesel. Threeton can't drive a truck anymore -- his accelerator foot and leg still suffer from some paralysis.
"It just ruined my life," he said in his Baker home recently.
Instead of commanding a big rig down the highway, he travels in a small pickup truck with an automatic transmission and a left-footed accelerator.
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It started with a bite
Last October, Threeton thinks, he was bitten by an infected mosquito in Alexandria, where he was spending the night while driving. But he really isn't sure.
Like most victims, Threeton's first symptoms were flu-like. "And, my (right) leg was giving out on me." Soon there was intense pain from the buttocks to the toe. After having made a quick trip to the doctor, Threeton found himself in Lane Memorial Hospital in Zachary, seeking relief. The nurse suggested it might be West Nile.
Wife Debbie said: "He was some sick in that hospital. I didn't think he was going to make it." Drugs used to treat him "couldn't seem to do much," she said.
His fever spiked at 104 degrees, and the pain in his leg and buttocks lasted for about 30 days. "It was severe pain - crying pain," he said.
The disease has damaged the nerves and muscles in his right leg. He was told by doctors that the best he will ever get out of his leg is 70-80 percent of the strength and mobility he originally had.
Months of physical therapy followed. He found a physical therapy machine that "helped re-educate me on how to walk. I stayed on the machine for about four months" and was able to reach "about walking speed." But, the doctors said his leg reached a plateau where little else was going to help.
He now wears a brace on his leg from the knee to his ankle and walks with a cane.
"It changes your life," he said of his West Nile experience. "I became the housewife," he said with a smile. Debbie, who works for the state Department of Education, smiles. "He does what he can," she added.
He adds that he will not do windows.
The two said they used to have a lot of birds around their home north of Baker off Bentley Drive. "We used to feed them, but we don't any more," Debbie said. The bird bath still attracts birds and gets a lot of use, but the Threetons dump the water frequently because they don't want to breed any mosquitoes.
Having to ignore the call of the road is still difficult, Boogie Threeton said. "When I get out on the interstate and see those trucks," he said, shaking his head and pausing. "It's tough.
"I don't think I will ever drive (trucks) again. I don't know what I am going to do. I had 10 more years and I was gonna quit."
But a mosquito changed that plan.
"My mother has the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. I just haven't figured it out yet," Boogie said.
He and Debbie feel people should know what can happen if you're bitten by an infected mosquito. "Take precautions; you never know what's going to happen," Debbie said.
Boogie chimed in: "People probably won't."
Now she knows
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Della Neely now says she should have taken precautions, such as wearing mosquito repellent.
In 2002, she spent a month caring for two horses that contracted West Nile virus in the lot behind her home near Bayou Duplantier east of Lee Drive. Being 44 years old at the time, she didn't think she would be at risk. The doctors were saying it affected primarily the old and infirm.
"I remember the mosquito bite on my right arm," Neely said, the only one of the three West Nile survivors who thinks she knows exactly when she was infected. "I remember feeling this," she pauses, looking for the right word, "sensation."
A few days later, "it was like I could hardly keep my eyes open. It was like I had taken five Benadryls. I had lots of pain in my shoulders, my joints, my hips."
"It was like a feverish, altered state," Neely said.
Her husband, Paul, came home and noticed she wasn't speaking. She managed to get out that she needed to go to the hospital.
She and Paul told doctors they thought it might be West Nile, since the horses had just had the disease. First, they tested her for the possibility of stroke, heart attack, drugs, alcohol poisoning, even early menopause.
Finally, a blood sample tested positive for West Nile. When the results came in, she had already gone home and ignored requests to check into the hospital.
"What are they going to do for me?" she asked, noting that there really is no treatment - no antibiotic or drug - that could cure her of the disease. Doctors can only treat the symptoms, like fever.
"I literally stayed in bed," Neely said of the next several weeks. "There were days and days when I literally could not roll over," she said.
From time to time, she would seem to come out of the fog and then return again, she said. She knew it was coming back when she felt pain in her jaw and hip and her energy fading.
She had returned to doing some activities, but when she felt what she calls a "spell" coming on, "I knew I had to get home fast."
The spells would "last five, six, seven, eight days and then I would not have it for a couple of weeks." Then another spell would hit.
The spells have been shorter and further apart over time.
She said she realized life had to change, especially the pressure-packed one she had been living before the bite.
"I had to become extremely better organized. I took off the better part of last year – seven months – reorganizing my life," she said.
She moved her business out of the house and into Laurel Lea shopping center to make being home less stressful. "I got rid of a lot of stuff" and gave up some hobbies, like working in her yard or taking on abandoned wildlife "babies" and rehabilitating them.
She hasn't ridden her quarter horse that suffered from West Nile, assuming that if she feels the effects of the disease, he probably doesn't need someone on his back. She missed a whole season of her beloved LSU Tiger football.
Multi-tasking is a habit of the past, she said. She eats better and works harder at relaxing more.
"I can always make more money; I can never make more time," she said at least three times during an interview.
She has become more spiritual. "I try to think healthy thoughts," Neely said. And, she appreciates that her case was not worse. "I have talked to people who can't raise their arm" from the effects of West Nile virus, she said.
One such person is Twila Jean "T.J." Starkey.
Paralyzing effects
T.J. attempted to be careful about being bitten by mosquitoes, having heard in 2002 about a new disease circulating between birds, mosquitoes and humans.
She remembers having a few mosquito bites on her legs around July 4 that year. That was when she and her husband, Joe, were headed to the Atlanta area to visit some of Joe's children. The night before, T.J. felt bad, but decided to press on.
She'd get better. Just felt like a little flu or maybe a sinus infection. Joe had been sick the week before, so a flu bug made sense, she recalled.
By the time they had driven to Atlanta, "my legs had gone out from under me. Those were the first symptoms." The next day, Joe had to carry T.J. into the hospital. She would stay in a medical facility of some sort until December 2003.
She remembers getting a spinal tap at the hospital. "I remember the needle going in."
For the next several weeks after that, any memory is provided by Joe, who watched her lay under a refrigerated blanket, have two pacemaker implants, a food tube installed in her stomach, and other medical procedures.
For the first 12 days, T.J. seemed constantly surrounded by "a sea of white coats," Joe said, as doctors first tried to figure out what happened and then were gawking at the first case of West Nile virus most of them had seen.
T.J. was loaded with different medications until West Nile was diagnosed. "There is no effective medication," Joe said he was told.
She has only limited memory. She remembers people standing around the bed "yelling my name, trying to wake me up." She remembers being unable to respond at all.
Eventually she began to regain consciousness. "It wasn't a wake-up," T.J. said, snapping her fingers "but more a period of coming in and going out … . It took a long time to start being coherent."
Joe, who now had time on his hands and the keys to the hospital's medical library, researched the drugs T.J. had been given and persuaded doctors to reduce or stop her dosages. They feel that helped her regain some consciousness.
Joe said "the awakening stretched out months and months."
T.J. said just "communicating took a long time. Part of my face was paralyzed." She could point a bit -- use of her arms had come back. Sometimes she could slowly write, letter by letter, with Joe's help. "She had to put a lot of effort into it," Joe said.
Eventually, she was well enough to fly by jet ambulance back to Louisiana, where she first was hospitalized in Hammond. They later moved to a Kenner facility and then a nursing home as T.J. slowly fought her way back to some semblance of an active life.
Since she has returned home, the focus is on being able to walk again. Both she and Joe confidently believe she will walk. Recently, she walked 68 feet with a walker. Such an effort sometimes can make her feel "like I just ran a five-mile race."
She has tried machines to work her leg muscles and even horseback riding, which helped her regain the ability to balance her body for walking. "They even would put me on sideways and backwards, so that my brain would not anticipate" which way to flex when the horse took a step. That therapy was in Baton Rouge.
Already religious, the experience has made both Joe and T.J. much more spiritual, they say.
"I know I was so close to death multiple times, but God just wasn't ready for me," T.J. said. She is sure that God had a purpose in her getting West Nile virus.
"I have been hope for hospitalized people who had no hope," T.J. said. For example, while in a nursing home beginning rehabilitation, often older patients who knew they would not get better encouraged her to work hard. "They gave me so much encouragement."
Now, she is doing physical therapy three days a week in Hammond. "I know people are watching me – I am an example. I always try to keep smiling" no matter the pain, she said.
One of her fellow rehabilitation patients recently presented her with an electric fly-swatter. "I know a mosquito did this to you. I want you get revenge," the woman told T. J.
She finally used it on one of the bugs.
"It felt pretty good."
Disease can be life-altering, debilitating
By MIKE DUNNE
Advocate staff writer
It was just a little mosquito bite -- a part of life in South Louisiana most of the year.
But that little bitty bug changed the lives of hundreds of Louisiana residents since West Nile virus made its appearance in Louisiana in 2002.
Just about this time every summer, human cases of the bird flu start to pop up across the state.
Already, four people -- three from Livingston Parish and one from Iberville Parish -- have become the first human cases of the mosquito-borne disease for 2005.
Last year, there were 114 cases of West Nile and seven deaths, and in 2003 there were 122 cases and seven deaths from the disease. The year with the highest number of West Nile cases in Louisiana was 2002, when the state experienced 329 cases and 25 deaths.
For most people bitten by an infected mosquito carrying West Nile, their immune system is strong enough to fight it. Only one of five people bitten will develop flu-like symptoms. Twenty percent of those who show symptoms will have a more severe case, with paralysis, nerve and brain damage, and even death.
Some of the survivors say that people really don't realize how dramatic life can change because of one little mosquito bite.
Baton Rouge real estate agent Della Neely, retired Exxon Chemical worker T.J. Starkey of Hammond, and former truck driver Lawson "Boogie" Threeton of Baker all say their lives have been turned upside down.
"Boogie" Threeton knew at an early age what he wanted to do: drive trucks.
Today, he misses the smell of diesel. Threeton can't drive a truck anymore -- his accelerator foot and leg still suffer from some paralysis.
"It just ruined my life," he said in his Baker home recently.
Instead of commanding a big rig down the highway, he travels in a small pickup truck with an automatic transmission and a left-footed accelerator.
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It started with a bite
Last October, Threeton thinks, he was bitten by an infected mosquito in Alexandria, where he was spending the night while driving. But he really isn't sure.
Like most victims, Threeton's first symptoms were flu-like. "And, my (right) leg was giving out on me." Soon there was intense pain from the buttocks to the toe. After having made a quick trip to the doctor, Threeton found himself in Lane Memorial Hospital in Zachary, seeking relief. The nurse suggested it might be West Nile.
Wife Debbie said: "He was some sick in that hospital. I didn't think he was going to make it." Drugs used to treat him "couldn't seem to do much," she said.
His fever spiked at 104 degrees, and the pain in his leg and buttocks lasted for about 30 days. "It was severe pain - crying pain," he said.
The disease has damaged the nerves and muscles in his right leg. He was told by doctors that the best he will ever get out of his leg is 70-80 percent of the strength and mobility he originally had.
Months of physical therapy followed. He found a physical therapy machine that "helped re-educate me on how to walk. I stayed on the machine for about four months" and was able to reach "about walking speed." But, the doctors said his leg reached a plateau where little else was going to help.
He now wears a brace on his leg from the knee to his ankle and walks with a cane.
"It changes your life," he said of his West Nile experience. "I became the housewife," he said with a smile. Debbie, who works for the state Department of Education, smiles. "He does what he can," she added.
He adds that he will not do windows.
The two said they used to have a lot of birds around their home north of Baker off Bentley Drive. "We used to feed them, but we don't any more," Debbie said. The bird bath still attracts birds and gets a lot of use, but the Threetons dump the water frequently because they don't want to breed any mosquitoes.
Having to ignore the call of the road is still difficult, Boogie Threeton said. "When I get out on the interstate and see those trucks," he said, shaking his head and pausing. "It's tough.
"I don't think I will ever drive (trucks) again. I don't know what I am going to do. I had 10 more years and I was gonna quit."
But a mosquito changed that plan.
"My mother has the philosophy that everything happens for a reason. I just haven't figured it out yet," Boogie said.
He and Debbie feel people should know what can happen if you're bitten by an infected mosquito. "Take precautions; you never know what's going to happen," Debbie said.
Boogie chimed in: "People probably won't."
Now she knows
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Della Neely now says she should have taken precautions, such as wearing mosquito repellent.
In 2002, she spent a month caring for two horses that contracted West Nile virus in the lot behind her home near Bayou Duplantier east of Lee Drive. Being 44 years old at the time, she didn't think she would be at risk. The doctors were saying it affected primarily the old and infirm.
"I remember the mosquito bite on my right arm," Neely said, the only one of the three West Nile survivors who thinks she knows exactly when she was infected. "I remember feeling this," she pauses, looking for the right word, "sensation."
A few days later, "it was like I could hardly keep my eyes open. It was like I had taken five Benadryls. I had lots of pain in my shoulders, my joints, my hips."
"It was like a feverish, altered state," Neely said.
Her husband, Paul, came home and noticed she wasn't speaking. She managed to get out that she needed to go to the hospital.
She and Paul told doctors they thought it might be West Nile, since the horses had just had the disease. First, they tested her for the possibility of stroke, heart attack, drugs, alcohol poisoning, even early menopause.
Finally, a blood sample tested positive for West Nile. When the results came in, she had already gone home and ignored requests to check into the hospital.
"What are they going to do for me?" she asked, noting that there really is no treatment - no antibiotic or drug - that could cure her of the disease. Doctors can only treat the symptoms, like fever.
"I literally stayed in bed," Neely said of the next several weeks. "There were days and days when I literally could not roll over," she said.
From time to time, she would seem to come out of the fog and then return again, she said. She knew it was coming back when she felt pain in her jaw and hip and her energy fading.
She had returned to doing some activities, but when she felt what she calls a "spell" coming on, "I knew I had to get home fast."
The spells would "last five, six, seven, eight days and then I would not have it for a couple of weeks." Then another spell would hit.
The spells have been shorter and further apart over time.
She said she realized life had to change, especially the pressure-packed one she had been living before the bite.
"I had to become extremely better organized. I took off the better part of last year – seven months – reorganizing my life," she said.
She moved her business out of the house and into Laurel Lea shopping center to make being home less stressful. "I got rid of a lot of stuff" and gave up some hobbies, like working in her yard or taking on abandoned wildlife "babies" and rehabilitating them.
She hasn't ridden her quarter horse that suffered from West Nile, assuming that if she feels the effects of the disease, he probably doesn't need someone on his back. She missed a whole season of her beloved LSU Tiger football.
Multi-tasking is a habit of the past, she said. She eats better and works harder at relaxing more.
"I can always make more money; I can never make more time," she said at least three times during an interview.
She has become more spiritual. "I try to think healthy thoughts," Neely said. And, she appreciates that her case was not worse. "I have talked to people who can't raise their arm" from the effects of West Nile virus, she said.
One such person is Twila Jean "T.J." Starkey.
Paralyzing effects
T.J. attempted to be careful about being bitten by mosquitoes, having heard in 2002 about a new disease circulating between birds, mosquitoes and humans.
She remembers having a few mosquito bites on her legs around July 4 that year. That was when she and her husband, Joe, were headed to the Atlanta area to visit some of Joe's children. The night before, T.J. felt bad, but decided to press on.
She'd get better. Just felt like a little flu or maybe a sinus infection. Joe had been sick the week before, so a flu bug made sense, she recalled.
By the time they had driven to Atlanta, "my legs had gone out from under me. Those were the first symptoms." The next day, Joe had to carry T.J. into the hospital. She would stay in a medical facility of some sort until December 2003.
She remembers getting a spinal tap at the hospital. "I remember the needle going in."
For the next several weeks after that, any memory is provided by Joe, who watched her lay under a refrigerated blanket, have two pacemaker implants, a food tube installed in her stomach, and other medical procedures.
For the first 12 days, T.J. seemed constantly surrounded by "a sea of white coats," Joe said, as doctors first tried to figure out what happened and then were gawking at the first case of West Nile virus most of them had seen.
T.J. was loaded with different medications until West Nile was diagnosed. "There is no effective medication," Joe said he was told.
She has only limited memory. She remembers people standing around the bed "yelling my name, trying to wake me up." She remembers being unable to respond at all.
Eventually she began to regain consciousness. "It wasn't a wake-up," T.J. said, snapping her fingers "but more a period of coming in and going out … . It took a long time to start being coherent."
Joe, who now had time on his hands and the keys to the hospital's medical library, researched the drugs T.J. had been given and persuaded doctors to reduce or stop her dosages. They feel that helped her regain some consciousness.
Joe said "the awakening stretched out months and months."
T.J. said just "communicating took a long time. Part of my face was paralyzed." She could point a bit -- use of her arms had come back. Sometimes she could slowly write, letter by letter, with Joe's help. "She had to put a lot of effort into it," Joe said.
Eventually, she was well enough to fly by jet ambulance back to Louisiana, where she first was hospitalized in Hammond. They later moved to a Kenner facility and then a nursing home as T.J. slowly fought her way back to some semblance of an active life.
Since she has returned home, the focus is on being able to walk again. Both she and Joe confidently believe she will walk. Recently, she walked 68 feet with a walker. Such an effort sometimes can make her feel "like I just ran a five-mile race."
She has tried machines to work her leg muscles and even horseback riding, which helped her regain the ability to balance her body for walking. "They even would put me on sideways and backwards, so that my brain would not anticipate" which way to flex when the horse took a step. That therapy was in Baton Rouge.
Already religious, the experience has made both Joe and T.J. much more spiritual, they say.
"I know I was so close to death multiple times, but God just wasn't ready for me," T.J. said. She is sure that God had a purpose in her getting West Nile virus.
"I have been hope for hospitalized people who had no hope," T.J. said. For example, while in a nursing home beginning rehabilitation, often older patients who knew they would not get better encouraged her to work hard. "They gave me so much encouragement."
Now, she is doing physical therapy three days a week in Hammond. "I know people are watching me – I am an example. I always try to keep smiling" no matter the pain, she said.
One of her fellow rehabilitation patients recently presented her with an electric fly-swatter. "I know a mosquito did this to you. I want you get revenge," the woman told T. J.
She finally used it on one of the bugs.
"It felt pretty good."
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Max del Hierro, California
Fighting West Nile's spread
BOUT WITH DISEASE SPURS SAN JOSE MAN
By John Woolfolk
Mercury News
Max del Hierro never saw the mosquito, and thought little of the itchy welt on his right ankle. But that bite in August was the start of a painful, crippling ordeal that nearly cost the San Jose computer engineer his life, and has since given him a new sense of purpose.
As the first and so far only person to contract the deadly West Nile fever in Santa Clara County, del Hierro has committed himself to helping people understand the threat posed by the mosquito-borne virus and the importance of fighting it.
``I'd really not like to see somebody else get as sick as I was,'' del Hierro, 51, said as he sipped a cup of black coffee one recent morning at the Coffee Cup, his favorite neighborhood cafe on McKee Road on the eastern edge of San Jose. ``I'm still recovering.''
Ten months after he was bitten, del Hierro is cheerful and high-spirited. But he still suffers numbness in the foot where the mosquito sucked his blood and injected him with the virus. He feels like he has lost his adrenaline. The mountain bike he loved to ride through the foothills near his home sits idle.
Del Hierro also suspects the virus may have contributed to his unemployment. The married father of three recently was laid off from the computer company where he had worked for 17 years, which was later sold. He wonders whether the dazed feeling he experienced during much of his recovery affected his job performance.
Del Hierro was well aware of West Nile virus before he contracted it. He knew that dead birds had been found infected with the virus in the hills where he liked to walk and bike. But it didn't occur to him that he might have caught the disease when he started feeling sick.
It was almost two weeks after he was bitten that he started feeling sick. It started on a Wednesday with stiffness and numbness in his legs, particularly the bitten limb. He was in pain, and had trouble walking. He soldiered through at work, where he was meeting some new bosses. By the time he got home Thursday, he was nauseated and feverish, and went to an urgent care clinic. He was told he had a routine virus and sent home.
Worsening illness
It was even worse the next morning. He had been up all night, twitching and tossing. He could barely get out of bed. Del Hierro checked in to an emergency room, but was sent home again. By that Sunday, Aug. 29, del Hierro was delirious with a 104-degree fever and taken by ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital. He was so dehydrated, he recalled, that his skin seemed to sag off his bones.
Doctors pumped fluids into him, and gave him medicine to lower his fever and reduce his nausea. Del Hierro's field of vision narrowed; he said it was as if he was looking through a tunnel. Oddly, his eyesight temporarily sharpened to where he could see clearly without his glasses, something he suspects was caused by swelling in his head.
By Monday, del Hierro was fading in and out of consciousness and had resigned himself to the possibility that he might die. He was more dazed than afraid, and said he credits his strong faith in God with giving him courage to accept his fate.
Yet even as del Hierro lay in the hospital on the brink of death, no one was quite sure what ailed him. A frequent traveler, del Hierro had been to Malaysia, Los Angeles, Seattle and the Gold Country town of Angels Camp all in July, offering a host of possible sources of infection for his doctors to consider. They tested for malaria and yellow fever.
Del Hierro credits his family with pressing doctors to consider West Nile. His eldest son, a 28-year-old computer expert, ran his symptoms on the www.webmd.com Internet site. The symptoms were almost a perfect match -- all that was missing was a rash.
Del Hierro's wife of 30 years is a veterinarian, and his 24-year-old daughter is a physical therapist. He credits their medical knowledge, support of family and friends, his faith and the top-notch treatment he got at Good Samaritan with helping him pull through.
``Just imagine if I didn't have all these people around me,'' del Hierro said. ``I felt blessed and lucky.''
Illness confirmed
After four days in the hospital, he went home. A few days later, test results confirmed he had been stricken by West Nile virus, which has sickened more than 16,500 Americans and killed 656 since the first U.S. case was reported in 1999. This year's first human case was reported last week in Kansas. Ten stricken birds have been found this year in Santa Clara County.
Though his fever was gone and the swelling had subsided, del Hierro's ordeal wasn't over. He felt disoriented and had trouble walking.
Santa Clara County public health officer Dr. Marty Fenstersheib said del Hierro had an unusually severe case. Eight out of 10 people infected with West Nile virus develop no symptoms, and most of the rest experience only mild illness, he said. Only about one out of 150 infected people develop severe symptoms like del Hierro's, he said.
Del Hierro also had been reluctant to identify himself publicly as a West Nile survivor. Among other things, he worried neighbors would not appreciate having their street identified with the virus.
But eventually, he grew more troubled by what seemed to be a complete lack of public awareness about West Nile. Co-workers wouldn't shake his hand, apparently fearing they would catch it from him, even though it is only spread through the blood.
Even more careful
Careful about mosquitoes even before he got sick, del Hierro is even more so now. He dispenses encyclopedic knowledge of mosquito biology and the benefits and drawbacks of various repellents. His personal favorite is the Malibu Mosquito Inhibitor, a $15 lamp-like device that blocks the bugs' ability to home in on a person's scent.
Recently, after Santa Clara County vector control officials launched a campaign to raise homeowners' yearly assessment $8.36 to $13.44 for mosquito abatement, del Hierro was alarmed to hear friends and neighbors complain about the fee increase. To del Hierro, the cost -- a little less than 2 cents a day -- seems a small price to help fight something so dangerous.
``They're all upset about the 2 cents,'' del Hierro said. ``They don't understand.''
Del Hierro said near-death experiences like surviving West Nile changes people, a sense other survivors he has met over the Internet have shared. For del Hierro, it inspired him to take a more active role educating people about the disease.
On Tuesday, del Hierro spoke before a public hearing on the vector control assessment, urging fellow residents to support it.
``I think I've been given a chance to live again,'' del Hierro explained later. ``You see life totally differently. I've been given a chance to educate people. I feel strongly that people not get this virus. My getting sick was one too many.''
Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3410.
BOUT WITH DISEASE SPURS SAN JOSE MAN
By John Woolfolk
Mercury News
Max del Hierro never saw the mosquito, and thought little of the itchy welt on his right ankle. But that bite in August was the start of a painful, crippling ordeal that nearly cost the San Jose computer engineer his life, and has since given him a new sense of purpose.
As the first and so far only person to contract the deadly West Nile fever in Santa Clara County, del Hierro has committed himself to helping people understand the threat posed by the mosquito-borne virus and the importance of fighting it.
``I'd really not like to see somebody else get as sick as I was,'' del Hierro, 51, said as he sipped a cup of black coffee one recent morning at the Coffee Cup, his favorite neighborhood cafe on McKee Road on the eastern edge of San Jose. ``I'm still recovering.''
Ten months after he was bitten, del Hierro is cheerful and high-spirited. But he still suffers numbness in the foot where the mosquito sucked his blood and injected him with the virus. He feels like he has lost his adrenaline. The mountain bike he loved to ride through the foothills near his home sits idle.
Del Hierro also suspects the virus may have contributed to his unemployment. The married father of three recently was laid off from the computer company where he had worked for 17 years, which was later sold. He wonders whether the dazed feeling he experienced during much of his recovery affected his job performance.
Del Hierro was well aware of West Nile virus before he contracted it. He knew that dead birds had been found infected with the virus in the hills where he liked to walk and bike. But it didn't occur to him that he might have caught the disease when he started feeling sick.
It was almost two weeks after he was bitten that he started feeling sick. It started on a Wednesday with stiffness and numbness in his legs, particularly the bitten limb. He was in pain, and had trouble walking. He soldiered through at work, where he was meeting some new bosses. By the time he got home Thursday, he was nauseated and feverish, and went to an urgent care clinic. He was told he had a routine virus and sent home.
Worsening illness
It was even worse the next morning. He had been up all night, twitching and tossing. He could barely get out of bed. Del Hierro checked in to an emergency room, but was sent home again. By that Sunday, Aug. 29, del Hierro was delirious with a 104-degree fever and taken by ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital. He was so dehydrated, he recalled, that his skin seemed to sag off his bones.
Doctors pumped fluids into him, and gave him medicine to lower his fever and reduce his nausea. Del Hierro's field of vision narrowed; he said it was as if he was looking through a tunnel. Oddly, his eyesight temporarily sharpened to where he could see clearly without his glasses, something he suspects was caused by swelling in his head.
By Monday, del Hierro was fading in and out of consciousness and had resigned himself to the possibility that he might die. He was more dazed than afraid, and said he credits his strong faith in God with giving him courage to accept his fate.
Yet even as del Hierro lay in the hospital on the brink of death, no one was quite sure what ailed him. A frequent traveler, del Hierro had been to Malaysia, Los Angeles, Seattle and the Gold Country town of Angels Camp all in July, offering a host of possible sources of infection for his doctors to consider. They tested for malaria and yellow fever.
Del Hierro credits his family with pressing doctors to consider West Nile. His eldest son, a 28-year-old computer expert, ran his symptoms on the www.webmd.com Internet site. The symptoms were almost a perfect match -- all that was missing was a rash.
Del Hierro's wife of 30 years is a veterinarian, and his 24-year-old daughter is a physical therapist. He credits their medical knowledge, support of family and friends, his faith and the top-notch treatment he got at Good Samaritan with helping him pull through.
``Just imagine if I didn't have all these people around me,'' del Hierro said. ``I felt blessed and lucky.''
Illness confirmed
After four days in the hospital, he went home. A few days later, test results confirmed he had been stricken by West Nile virus, which has sickened more than 16,500 Americans and killed 656 since the first U.S. case was reported in 1999. This year's first human case was reported last week in Kansas. Ten stricken birds have been found this year in Santa Clara County.
Though his fever was gone and the swelling had subsided, del Hierro's ordeal wasn't over. He felt disoriented and had trouble walking.
Santa Clara County public health officer Dr. Marty Fenstersheib said del Hierro had an unusually severe case. Eight out of 10 people infected with West Nile virus develop no symptoms, and most of the rest experience only mild illness, he said. Only about one out of 150 infected people develop severe symptoms like del Hierro's, he said.
Del Hierro also had been reluctant to identify himself publicly as a West Nile survivor. Among other things, he worried neighbors would not appreciate having their street identified with the virus.
But eventually, he grew more troubled by what seemed to be a complete lack of public awareness about West Nile. Co-workers wouldn't shake his hand, apparently fearing they would catch it from him, even though it is only spread through the blood.
Even more careful
Careful about mosquitoes even before he got sick, del Hierro is even more so now. He dispenses encyclopedic knowledge of mosquito biology and the benefits and drawbacks of various repellents. His personal favorite is the Malibu Mosquito Inhibitor, a $15 lamp-like device that blocks the bugs' ability to home in on a person's scent.
Recently, after Santa Clara County vector control officials launched a campaign to raise homeowners' yearly assessment $8.36 to $13.44 for mosquito abatement, del Hierro was alarmed to hear friends and neighbors complain about the fee increase. To del Hierro, the cost -- a little less than 2 cents a day -- seems a small price to help fight something so dangerous.
``They're all upset about the 2 cents,'' del Hierro said. ``They don't understand.''
Del Hierro said near-death experiences like surviving West Nile changes people, a sense other survivors he has met over the Internet have shared. For del Hierro, it inspired him to take a more active role educating people about the disease.
On Tuesday, del Hierro spoke before a public hearing on the vector control assessment, urging fellow residents to support it.
``I think I've been given a chance to live again,'' del Hierro explained later. ``You see life totally differently. I've been given a chance to educate people. I feel strongly that people not get this virus. My getting sick was one too many.''
Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3410.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Genevie Cook, Maitoba Canada
CNEWS
Sun, July 24, 2005
Victim's W. Nile warning, Reality check for protesters on grave risks
By ROSS ROMANIUK, CITY HALL REPORTER
Before picking up an anti-fog placard, try suffering in my shoes.
That message comes from a Winnipeg woman who was once severely affected by the deadly mosquito-borne West Nile virus.
And she says protesters of the city's fogging operations are putting themselves and others at grave risk.
Genevie Cook contracted West Nile two years ago, becoming one of Manitoba's 35 serious human cases during a summer when the disease emerged as a serious threat in Canada.
"I was vomiting, shaking, I was weak and my hair was like straw," Cook, a 40-year-old health-care aide, told The Sun.
"I lost a lot of weight, I had a rash all over my body and a major headache. And I had no strength."
The symptoms sent Cook to Seven Oaks General Hospital in August 2003 for a week-long stay due to West Nile's neurological syndrome.
She was at the hospital "bodily," she says, "but in mind, no," while losing consciousness for long stretches.
"It was really scary. I was basically comatose. They didn't know what was wrong with me," Cook recalled.
"And when I was awake and alert, all I was doing was trembling. I was dizzy and nauseated. I had to take Gravol to even go for a car ride or just walk. I was so weak I had to have someone pretty much lift me off the couch or pull me so I could sit up."
Cook wants those protesting the city's use of malathion to understand how their disruptions could hurt the public far more than help.
Her warning is echoed by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
"That's something I keep repeating -- that West Nile virus has to be given a great deal of respect," said WRHA medical officer Dr. Pierre Plourde.
Opponents of Winnipeg's skeeter spraying have long charged that malathion harms human immune systems.
The nerve agent comes with risks, Plourde says, but adds that it's safe at the city's low-volume fog levels.
'UNPREDICTABLE'
"The risk of malathion is minuscule," he explained. "So now you balance that against the risk of West Nile virus -- it's low, but it's increasing in our setting. It's unpredictable.
"We have a new virus that's only been around for a few years -- a new strain of the virus. It's mutated and it's become much more aggressive and lethal, potentially, than it was in Africa where it originated. And it's unpredictable. No one can tell you right now what we're going to see in the next few weeks. The worst-case scenario could be pretty bad, so one has to prepare for that."
Still occasionally suffering what she calls "the shakes," Cook says fogging opponents are "pretty naive" about mosquito season.
"They have to know what a person has to go through and feel -- when you lose your mobility and independence and have to build yourself up to start walking again," she said, noting she was off the job for about four months after entering the hospital.
Two Manitobans died from West Nile in 2003, while 142 people were infected.
Cook may have been among the lucky ones. Though only 20% of those who contract West Nile become ill, one of every 150 of that group might require hospital care.
Those victims have up to a 20% chance of dying.
"And your chance of being in chronic rehabilitation, of never being normal again, is upwards of 75%," Plourde said. "Only about one-quarter or so of those people who are hospitalized have full recovery, and can say they feel normal again."
Sun, July 24, 2005
Victim's W. Nile warning, Reality check for protesters on grave risks
By ROSS ROMANIUK, CITY HALL REPORTER
Before picking up an anti-fog placard, try suffering in my shoes.
That message comes from a Winnipeg woman who was once severely affected by the deadly mosquito-borne West Nile virus.
And she says protesters of the city's fogging operations are putting themselves and others at grave risk.
Genevie Cook contracted West Nile two years ago, becoming one of Manitoba's 35 serious human cases during a summer when the disease emerged as a serious threat in Canada.
"I was vomiting, shaking, I was weak and my hair was like straw," Cook, a 40-year-old health-care aide, told The Sun.
"I lost a lot of weight, I had a rash all over my body and a major headache. And I had no strength."
The symptoms sent Cook to Seven Oaks General Hospital in August 2003 for a week-long stay due to West Nile's neurological syndrome.
She was at the hospital "bodily," she says, "but in mind, no," while losing consciousness for long stretches.
"It was really scary. I was basically comatose. They didn't know what was wrong with me," Cook recalled.
"And when I was awake and alert, all I was doing was trembling. I was dizzy and nauseated. I had to take Gravol to even go for a car ride or just walk. I was so weak I had to have someone pretty much lift me off the couch or pull me so I could sit up."
Cook wants those protesting the city's use of malathion to understand how their disruptions could hurt the public far more than help.
Her warning is echoed by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
"That's something I keep repeating -- that West Nile virus has to be given a great deal of respect," said WRHA medical officer Dr. Pierre Plourde.
Opponents of Winnipeg's skeeter spraying have long charged that malathion harms human immune systems.
The nerve agent comes with risks, Plourde says, but adds that it's safe at the city's low-volume fog levels.
'UNPREDICTABLE'
"The risk of malathion is minuscule," he explained. "So now you balance that against the risk of West Nile virus -- it's low, but it's increasing in our setting. It's unpredictable.
"We have a new virus that's only been around for a few years -- a new strain of the virus. It's mutated and it's become much more aggressive and lethal, potentially, than it was in Africa where it originated. And it's unpredictable. No one can tell you right now what we're going to see in the next few weeks. The worst-case scenario could be pretty bad, so one has to prepare for that."
Still occasionally suffering what she calls "the shakes," Cook says fogging opponents are "pretty naive" about mosquito season.
"They have to know what a person has to go through and feel -- when you lose your mobility and independence and have to build yourself up to start walking again," she said, noting she was off the job for about four months after entering the hospital.
Two Manitobans died from West Nile in 2003, while 142 people were infected.
Cook may have been among the lucky ones. Though only 20% of those who contract West Nile become ill, one of every 150 of that group might require hospital care.
Those victims have up to a 20% chance of dying.
"And your chance of being in chronic rehabilitation, of never being normal again, is upwards of 75%," Plourde said. "Only about one-quarter or so of those people who are hospitalized have full recovery, and can say they feel normal again."
Jack Raney again
rticle Published: Saturday, July 23, 2005 - 9:53:22 PM PST
Victim gives West Nile warning, Virus infects without bias
By L.C. Greene
Staff Writer
ONTARIO - Jack Raney told of his near-death battle with West Nile virus for the umpteenth time Saturday, but this time, he appeared markedly stronger and more self-assured.
Recovery is brutally slow, though, and the 46-year-old Upland man admits he's far from recovered.
Speaking at a West Nile virus town hall meeting, Raney warned that infected mosquitoes can bite anyone, and anyone can get sick.
"All of you are at risk," he said.
Almost a year ago, the former bricklayer lay in a coma and breathing on a respirator at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. The mosquito-borne viral infection was ravaging his brain and spinal cord.
Raney came out of the coma after four days and began the long recovery process.
"I had to learn how to walk again," he said.
One arm was partially paralyzed and remains weak. The damage to Raney's central nervous system left him unable to work, depressed and emotionally frail.
Resuming the role of family breadwinner, or even helping his children with their homework lay beyond his capabilities.
"My life lacked self-worth," Raney said.
The opportunity to take on a new role and possibly regain some self-worth presented itself, however, and Raney seized it.
He has become a kind of West Nile poster child, profiled in the media, featured in documentaries, addressing legislators and speaking at town hall meetings such as this one.
"This disease does not discriminate," Raney told the group.
Therefore, everyone should take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
That was the underlying message at the two-hour town meeting, sponsored by Assemblywoman Gloria N. McLeod, D-Montclair, and held at the De Anza Center in Ontario.
"It's not going to go away," she said of the virus. "We as citizens of the community must be very aware."
Residents are advised to look for and eliminate standing water around their properties. Mosquitoes need water, and not very much of it, to breed.
"No water - no mosquitoes," said West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District general manager Min-Lee Chen, who gave the assembled a primer on the virus and its spread across the country.
Most cases of West Nile are probably contracted in and around people's homes, he said.
So far this year in California, 21 people from nine counties have contracted either West Nile fever or, like Raney, the more serious West Nile encephalitis or meningitis. An elderly Kings County man was the first fatality.
In 2004, the state recorded 830 confirmed cases and 28 deaths.
Residents are advised to not only eliminate standing water, but also to repair screens, avoid going out during the evening or morning hours when mosquitoes are most active, and if outside during those times, to use repellent containing DEET, picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus.
Victim gives West Nile warning, Virus infects without bias
By L.C. Greene
Staff Writer
ONTARIO - Jack Raney told of his near-death battle with West Nile virus for the umpteenth time Saturday, but this time, he appeared markedly stronger and more self-assured.
Recovery is brutally slow, though, and the 46-year-old Upland man admits he's far from recovered.
Speaking at a West Nile virus town hall meeting, Raney warned that infected mosquitoes can bite anyone, and anyone can get sick.
"All of you are at risk," he said.
Almost a year ago, the former bricklayer lay in a coma and breathing on a respirator at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. The mosquito-borne viral infection was ravaging his brain and spinal cord.
Raney came out of the coma after four days and began the long recovery process.
"I had to learn how to walk again," he said.
One arm was partially paralyzed and remains weak. The damage to Raney's central nervous system left him unable to work, depressed and emotionally frail.
Resuming the role of family breadwinner, or even helping his children with their homework lay beyond his capabilities.
"My life lacked self-worth," Raney said.
The opportunity to take on a new role and possibly regain some self-worth presented itself, however, and Raney seized it.
He has become a kind of West Nile poster child, profiled in the media, featured in documentaries, addressing legislators and speaking at town hall meetings such as this one.
"This disease does not discriminate," Raney told the group.
Therefore, everyone should take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
That was the underlying message at the two-hour town meeting, sponsored by Assemblywoman Gloria N. McLeod, D-Montclair, and held at the De Anza Center in Ontario.
"It's not going to go away," she said of the virus. "We as citizens of the community must be very aware."
Residents are advised to look for and eliminate standing water around their properties. Mosquitoes need water, and not very much of it, to breed.
"No water - no mosquitoes," said West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District general manager Min-Lee Chen, who gave the assembled a primer on the virus and its spread across the country.
Most cases of West Nile are probably contracted in and around people's homes, he said.
So far this year in California, 21 people from nine counties have contracted either West Nile fever or, like Raney, the more serious West Nile encephalitis or meningitis. An elderly Kings County man was the first fatality.
In 2004, the state recorded 830 confirmed cases and 28 deaths.
Residents are advised to not only eliminate standing water, but also to repair screens, avoid going out during the evening or morning hours when mosquitoes are most active, and if outside during those times, to use repellent containing DEET, picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Dianne Fluty - Cara Keilman - Roger Wilkins MO
Posted on Thu, Jul. 14, 2005
West Nile virus can disable for months, years
BY ALAN BAVLEY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - (KRT) - Two summers ago, West Nile virus invaded Cara Keilman's brain and likely caused a stroke that the 11-year-old Ness City, Kan., girl is still striving to overcome.
After mosquitoes swarmed Roger Wilkins of Bucyrus, Kan., in 2003, he spent a month in the hospital feverish, dizzy and delirious with a West Nile infection. Months of physical therapy later, he still feels weak and less steady on his feet.
Dianne Fluty suffered through the summer of 2002 with headaches, insomnia and tremors. The Sedalia, Mo., woman spent a year recovering from the West Nile virus infection that caused her symptoms. But even now, the tremors and headaches make regular visits.
As hundreds of its victims have discovered, West Nile virus is a ferocious enemy. Once thought to be a serious threat mainly to the elderly and infirm, researchers have found that the virus can cause months of debilitating illness, and even poliolike paralysis, in healthy people of all ages.
And even relatively mild cases of West Nile illness that doctors used to compare to a weeklong bout of flu have turned out to have serious lingering symptoms.
"West Nile is a frightening disease," said Daniel Hinthorn, an infectious disease specialist and West Nile researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Scientists estimate that less than 1 percent of mosquitoes carry the virus. Only small percentages of people become infected.
About one in five people who are infected with the virus become ill, Hinthorn said. "Most people who are infected won't know they have it. But if they do get the disease, it can be devastating."
Among the most serious cases are infections that attack the spinal cord and cause paralysis.
Investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been reporting these cases for several years. In 2003 they tracked West Nile virus illnesses in three Colorado counties and identified 27 such serious cases.
That translated into a paralysis rate of 3.7 cases per 100,000 people, a level comparable to what is seen during polio epidemics.
"A surprising number of people who develop this syndrome can be in their 30s or 40s and otherwise healthy," said James Sejvar, a CDC medical epidemiologist who is studying these West Nile paralysis cases. "You don't have to be a frail old person to become severely ill from West Nile."
West Nile typically is passed to people by mosquitoes that pick up the virus from infected birds. Since West Nile made its first North American appearance in New York City in 1999, it has spread across the continent.
The results: Nearly 17,000 cases of West Nile virus illnesses and more than 650 deaths nationwide.
Doctors used to describe West Nile fever as a flulike illness with nausea and headaches lasting three to six days. But that hasn't turned out to be the case.
When researchers with the Chicago Department of Public Health surveyed 98 persons who developed West Nile fever in 2002, they found that large numbers suffered from fatigue, muscle weakness and difficulty concentrating for a month or longer. On average, it took these patients two months to feel they were back to normal.The patients' age had no bearing on the length of their illness, the researchers found.
"Adults of any age can get West Nile fever, which can put them on their backs for a long time," said William Paul, deputy commissioner of the Chicago health department. "We were surprised at the duration of symptoms and the degree of symptoms people had. The common knowledge of West Nile fever previously was that it was a mild illness that lasted a few days."
Still more serious infections occur where West Nile virus attacks the central nervous system. These infections can inflame membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, a condition called meningitis; or inflame the brain itself, causing encephalitis.
The New York City Department of Health came up with some disturbing findings when it followed the progress of people hospitalized with West Nile meningitis, encephalitis or fever in 1999.
A year after their illness, 37 percent of these patients had fully recovered. Nearly half required physical therapy.
Even after 18 months, more than 40 percent still suffered from some combination of muscle weakness, fatigue, insomnia and difficulty walking; 30 percent still experienced memory loss, confusion, depression and irritability.
A lot of these people were significantly impaired down the road. It had a significant impact on their lives for a long time," said Annie Fine, an epidemiologist who participated in the study.
Patients under 65 were nearly three times as likely as older patients to make a full recovery. But even so, more than a third of the younger patients still had lingering problems after a year.
"Even among young people it can be a serious infection and have a long-lasting impact," Fine said.
Cara Keilman felt the full force of West Nile virus two years ago, when she was just 9.
She was riding her bike when her right foot slipped off the pedal and her right hand couldn't grasp the handlebar. Paralyzed on her right side, she struggled for 20 minutes to finish the short ride to her Ness City home.
Doctors in Hays diagnosed a massive stroke. Cara was flown to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
"They did brain scans. They did every test you could do. You name it, they did it," Cara's mother, Faye Keilman, recalled.
A blood test for West Nile virus turned up positive. Doctors told Faye Keilman that the virus probably inflamed blood vessels in Cara's brain. That led to her stroke and to the seizures.
Cara needed months of drug treatment to bring down the inflammation and physical therapy to regain the use of the right side of her body.
She can write again with her right hand, although with her limited muscle control she clenches the pen too hard. And she's even resumed playing a full roster of sports –– basketball, volleyball, track and softball.
"She's not going to let it slow her down," her mother said.
Dianne Fluty knew there were plenty of mosquitoes buzzing around her Sedalia home three years ago, but she didn't take precautions to avoid bites.
"I took it lightly," she said. "Oh, this is crazy, West Nile."
But through the summer she had headaches. She couldn't sleep. Tremors shook her body. She was hospitalized several times with meningitis and encephalitis caused by West Nile virus.
"It was a really rough time and it was a long recovery," said Fluty, 55. "Once in a while I still get tremors. I'm better than I was, but I am not right. I don't have the memory or mind I used to have."
Roger Wilkins, 65, recalled sitting on the deck of his Bucyrus home when mosquitoes attacked. It wasn't long after that Wilkins was feverish, dizzy and too tired to do anything but sleep or watch television.
A trip to the St. Luke's South emergency room turned into a four-week hospital stay for meningitis and encephalitis.
"He was in and out of reality," said Wilkins' wife, Melanie. "A nurse found him standing on his bed acting as if he was trying to change a light bulb."
Wilkins went through five months of physical, occupational and speech therapy. He's back at his job supervising work sites for home builders. But West Nile has taken its toll.
Wilkins said he tires easily. He's less steady on his feet. His muscles ache constantly.
"People say West Nile, they think it's something you get over. I'm sorry. I think they're wrong," Wilkins said.
"A lot of this, I think, is a problem that will stay with me until I leave this earth."
Insect repellents containing the chemical DEET have long been considered the most effective protection against mosquitoes.
But this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added two alternatives to their list. The chemical picaridin has been used successfully in repellents for years in other countries. CDC officials say its effectiveness often is comparable to that of DEET.
The other newly recommended ingredient is oil of lemon eucalyptus, a plant-based product. It appears to be as effective as low concentrations of DEET, the CDC said.
Consumer Reports recently tested Cutter Advanced, a new spray repellent with picaridin, and found its effectiveness comparable to a spray containing 10 percent DEET. The picaridin spray didn't have the chemical odor or greasy feel of DEET sprays.
The University of Kansas Medical Center is participating in a nationwide study of whether immune globulin collected from donors in Israel is an effective treatment for West Nile virus illnesses.
West Nile is common in Israel, so the immune globulin collected there contains high levels of antibodies against the virus.
The immune globulin, called Omr-IgG-am, has to be given soon after an infection to be effective. Persons with West Nile fever symptoms who want to participate in the study should come to the medical center within a week after symptoms appear. Patients may seek help through the medical center's emergency room or ask their personal physician to contact the center's infectious disease division.
---
© 2005, The Kansas City Star.
Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kcstar.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
West Nile virus can disable for months, years
BY ALAN BAVLEY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - (KRT) - Two summers ago, West Nile virus invaded Cara Keilman's brain and likely caused a stroke that the 11-year-old Ness City, Kan., girl is still striving to overcome.
After mosquitoes swarmed Roger Wilkins of Bucyrus, Kan., in 2003, he spent a month in the hospital feverish, dizzy and delirious with a West Nile infection. Months of physical therapy later, he still feels weak and less steady on his feet.
Dianne Fluty suffered through the summer of 2002 with headaches, insomnia and tremors. The Sedalia, Mo., woman spent a year recovering from the West Nile virus infection that caused her symptoms. But even now, the tremors and headaches make regular visits.
As hundreds of its victims have discovered, West Nile virus is a ferocious enemy. Once thought to be a serious threat mainly to the elderly and infirm, researchers have found that the virus can cause months of debilitating illness, and even poliolike paralysis, in healthy people of all ages.
And even relatively mild cases of West Nile illness that doctors used to compare to a weeklong bout of flu have turned out to have serious lingering symptoms.
"West Nile is a frightening disease," said Daniel Hinthorn, an infectious disease specialist and West Nile researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Scientists estimate that less than 1 percent of mosquitoes carry the virus. Only small percentages of people become infected.
About one in five people who are infected with the virus become ill, Hinthorn said. "Most people who are infected won't know they have it. But if they do get the disease, it can be devastating."
Among the most serious cases are infections that attack the spinal cord and cause paralysis.
Investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been reporting these cases for several years. In 2003 they tracked West Nile virus illnesses in three Colorado counties and identified 27 such serious cases.
That translated into a paralysis rate of 3.7 cases per 100,000 people, a level comparable to what is seen during polio epidemics.
"A surprising number of people who develop this syndrome can be in their 30s or 40s and otherwise healthy," said James Sejvar, a CDC medical epidemiologist who is studying these West Nile paralysis cases. "You don't have to be a frail old person to become severely ill from West Nile."
West Nile typically is passed to people by mosquitoes that pick up the virus from infected birds. Since West Nile made its first North American appearance in New York City in 1999, it has spread across the continent.
The results: Nearly 17,000 cases of West Nile virus illnesses and more than 650 deaths nationwide.
Doctors used to describe West Nile fever as a flulike illness with nausea and headaches lasting three to six days. But that hasn't turned out to be the case.
When researchers with the Chicago Department of Public Health surveyed 98 persons who developed West Nile fever in 2002, they found that large numbers suffered from fatigue, muscle weakness and difficulty concentrating for a month or longer. On average, it took these patients two months to feel they were back to normal.The patients' age had no bearing on the length of their illness, the researchers found.
"Adults of any age can get West Nile fever, which can put them on their backs for a long time," said William Paul, deputy commissioner of the Chicago health department. "We were surprised at the duration of symptoms and the degree of symptoms people had. The common knowledge of West Nile fever previously was that it was a mild illness that lasted a few days."
Still more serious infections occur where West Nile virus attacks the central nervous system. These infections can inflame membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, a condition called meningitis; or inflame the brain itself, causing encephalitis.
The New York City Department of Health came up with some disturbing findings when it followed the progress of people hospitalized with West Nile meningitis, encephalitis or fever in 1999.
A year after their illness, 37 percent of these patients had fully recovered. Nearly half required physical therapy.
Even after 18 months, more than 40 percent still suffered from some combination of muscle weakness, fatigue, insomnia and difficulty walking; 30 percent still experienced memory loss, confusion, depression and irritability.
A lot of these people were significantly impaired down the road. It had a significant impact on their lives for a long time," said Annie Fine, an epidemiologist who participated in the study.
Patients under 65 were nearly three times as likely as older patients to make a full recovery. But even so, more than a third of the younger patients still had lingering problems after a year.
"Even among young people it can be a serious infection and have a long-lasting impact," Fine said.
Cara Keilman felt the full force of West Nile virus two years ago, when she was just 9.
She was riding her bike when her right foot slipped off the pedal and her right hand couldn't grasp the handlebar. Paralyzed on her right side, she struggled for 20 minutes to finish the short ride to her Ness City home.
Doctors in Hays diagnosed a massive stroke. Cara was flown to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
"They did brain scans. They did every test you could do. You name it, they did it," Cara's mother, Faye Keilman, recalled.
A blood test for West Nile virus turned up positive. Doctors told Faye Keilman that the virus probably inflamed blood vessels in Cara's brain. That led to her stroke and to the seizures.
Cara needed months of drug treatment to bring down the inflammation and physical therapy to regain the use of the right side of her body.
She can write again with her right hand, although with her limited muscle control she clenches the pen too hard. And she's even resumed playing a full roster of sports –– basketball, volleyball, track and softball.
"She's not going to let it slow her down," her mother said.
Dianne Fluty knew there were plenty of mosquitoes buzzing around her Sedalia home three years ago, but she didn't take precautions to avoid bites.
"I took it lightly," she said. "Oh, this is crazy, West Nile."
But through the summer she had headaches. She couldn't sleep. Tremors shook her body. She was hospitalized several times with meningitis and encephalitis caused by West Nile virus.
"It was a really rough time and it was a long recovery," said Fluty, 55. "Once in a while I still get tremors. I'm better than I was, but I am not right. I don't have the memory or mind I used to have."
Roger Wilkins, 65, recalled sitting on the deck of his Bucyrus home when mosquitoes attacked. It wasn't long after that Wilkins was feverish, dizzy and too tired to do anything but sleep or watch television.
A trip to the St. Luke's South emergency room turned into a four-week hospital stay for meningitis and encephalitis.
"He was in and out of reality," said Wilkins' wife, Melanie. "A nurse found him standing on his bed acting as if he was trying to change a light bulb."
Wilkins went through five months of physical, occupational and speech therapy. He's back at his job supervising work sites for home builders. But West Nile has taken its toll.
Wilkins said he tires easily. He's less steady on his feet. His muscles ache constantly.
"People say West Nile, they think it's something you get over. I'm sorry. I think they're wrong," Wilkins said.
"A lot of this, I think, is a problem that will stay with me until I leave this earth."
Insect repellents containing the chemical DEET have long been considered the most effective protection against mosquitoes.
But this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added two alternatives to their list. The chemical picaridin has been used successfully in repellents for years in other countries. CDC officials say its effectiveness often is comparable to that of DEET.
The other newly recommended ingredient is oil of lemon eucalyptus, a plant-based product. It appears to be as effective as low concentrations of DEET, the CDC said.
Consumer Reports recently tested Cutter Advanced, a new spray repellent with picaridin, and found its effectiveness comparable to a spray containing 10 percent DEET. The picaridin spray didn't have the chemical odor or greasy feel of DEET sprays.
The University of Kansas Medical Center is participating in a nationwide study of whether immune globulin collected from donors in Israel is an effective treatment for West Nile virus illnesses.
West Nile is common in Israel, so the immune globulin collected there contains high levels of antibodies against the virus.
The immune globulin, called Omr-IgG-am, has to be given soon after an infection to be effective. Persons with West Nile fever symptoms who want to participate in the study should come to the medical center within a week after symptoms appear. Patients may seek help through the medical center's emergency room or ask their personal physician to contact the center's infectious disease division.
---
© 2005, The Kansas City Star.
Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kcstar.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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