- Fatal St Louis Encephalitis Case Previously Listed As
West Nile Case
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- By Mike Dunne 2theadvocate.com First published 9-24-3
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- 4 Livingston Parish residents and a Baton Rouge man have
been diagnosed with mosquito-borne St. Louis encephalitis virus infection.
One of those Livingston Parish cases, a 64-year-old man, has died from
St. Louis encephalitis. His case apparently was listed previously as a
West Nile virus case. The 2 diseases give similar results in preliminary
screenings.
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- State Epidemiologist Dr. Raoult Ratard said Tuesday he
expects the St. Louis encephalitis cases to remain small in number. "It
is fairly late in the season and I would not expect St. Louis to blossom
into an outbreak. But, you never know," Ratard said. The encephalitis
season should end in about 5 weeks, he said. There were no new cases in
Caddo Parish, which has been the hardest hit by West Nile virus infection,
so it appears the disease is slowing down.
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- East Baton Rouge Parish Mosquito Abatement and Rodent
Control District Director Matt Yates said the one St. Louis encephalitis
case in his parish is a 43-year-old man who lives north of the Antioch
Road Park and 2-3 miles west of some of the Livingston Parish cases. The
Livingston cases are scattered across that parish, he said. Mosquitoes
carrying St. Louis encephalitis virus have been found in surveillance traps
in 5 locations in East Baton Rouge since the beginning of August 2003.
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- On Tue 23 Sep 2003, the Louisiana Department of Health
and Hospitals reported the new St. Louis cases and also 8 new cases of
West Nile virus, bringing that disease's total to 67 Louisiana cases and
one death. A Tangipahoa Parish man was diagnosed earlier this summer with
Eastern equine encephalitis, which kills about 30 percent of those it infects.
So Louisiana now has 3 of the most common forms of mosquito-carried encephalitis.
2 years ago, a St. Louis encephalitis outbreak in the Monroe area killed
4 and made 71 people sick.
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- Only one of the state's West Nile virus cases is from
East Baton Rouge, which this time of year in 2002 reported 48 cases. Statewide
at this time in 2002, there were 287 cases of West Nile and 14 deaths.
Lincoln, West Carroll, and Washington parishes all reported their first
human cases of West Nile virus, meaning 20 of the state's 64 parishes have
been touched by a human case of West Nile virus.
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- Yates said the mosquito control district's traps have
found an increasing number of _Culex nigrapalpus_, the primary carrier
for St. Louis encephalitis. "_Culex nigrapalpus_ bites outdoors at
night," Yates said. "People need to keep wearing the inspect
repellent, even if it is getting cooler. In the history of the district
we have never seen many of that species (_Cx.nigrapalpus_), a few here
and there," Yates said. One possibility for the jump in _Cx nigrapalpus_
numbers is the increased use of storm water retention ponds across the
parish, Yates said. "They like to breed in those. We are seeing more
problems associated with those structures, and that may account for the
increase in this species, but there may be something else going on,"
he said. "It may have something to do with rainfall patterns."
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- Officials are asking people to reduce their risk of contracting
West Nile virus or St. Louis encephalitis by applying mosquito repellent,
wearing long sleeves and long pants, and avoiding use of perfumes or colognes
when outside for prolonged periods of time. Dead birds have also been used
as sentinels to alert health officials to presence of the virus in an area.
Only 5 parishes have not shown some evidence of one of the 3 encephalitis
viruses: Plaquemines, Red River, East Carroll, Madison, and Tensas.
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- http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/092403/new_virus001.shtml
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- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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