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- WASHINGTON (AFP) - The potentially
deadly West Nile virus has been discovered creeping across the northeastern
United States as New Jersey became the fourth state affected by the mosquito-borne
virus.
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- The New Jersey state Department of Health and Senior
Services acknowledged late Friday discovering nine dead crows, which had
tested positive for the virus.
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- About two dozen people showing symptoms similar to St.
Louis Encephalitis, which can be caused by the West Nile virus, underwent
blood testing, according to a statement issued by the department.
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- "All results reported to date have been negative,"
assured the document.
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- But public US health officials found little comfort in
the fact that the virus, which killed seven and sickened 59 other people
in the New York City area last year, so far has not caused human casualties
this year.
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- In addition to New Jersey, dead birds and mosquitoes
carrying the West Nile virus have been discovered in the states of New
York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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- Officials have responded with an uncompromising war on
mosquitoes.
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- "The state urges to continue to look for ways around
the home to reduce mosquitoes' primary breeding ground, standing water,
and to avoid mosquito bites," said Arthur Rocque, commissioner of
the Department of Environmental Protection of Connecticut, in a statement
Tuesday.
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- West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes were discovered in
Stamford, Connecticut, on July 21, prompting authorities to spray the whole
neighborhood with pesticide.
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- Pesticide-spraying trucks also circled downtown New York
early Saturday morning, reflecting the city's growing concern over the
discovery of 16 virus-infected dead birds and three pools of germ-carrying
mosquitoes.
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- "With recent heavy rains in our area, I want to
remind all New Yorkers to help mosquito-proof New York City by removing
sources of standing water around their homes," city Health Commissioner
Neal Cohen said in an appeal issued Friday.
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- Targeted ground spraying has been conducted in Boston,
Massachusetts, where a dead crow infected by the West Nile virus was found
on July 22.
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- Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, where no virus has been
discovered, have launched preventive public awareness programs.
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- Most people bitten by virus-carrying mosquitoes do not
get sick, according to health officials. But elderly people as well as
those with a weakened immune system can get infected and develop encephalitis,
a potentially deadly disease.
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- Similar outbreaks of West Nile virus-triggered encephalitis
have also occurred in Algeria in 1994, in Romania in 1996 and 1997 and
in the Czech Republic in 1997, according to the US Center for Disease Control
and Prevention.
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