- Holidaymakers heading for Europe, the US and Canada were
last night warned to protect themselves against mosquito bites in a bid
to keep the potentially deadly west Nile virus out of Britain.
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- Tourists were advised to take heightened security measures
after laboratory tests confirmed two Irish tourists returning from the
Algarve in Portugal had the disease.
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- It is thought to be the first time the disease has been
confirmed in people in either Britain or Ireland, or linked to infection
in the Algarve. The virus has spread across the US - where it has killed
hundreds in the past four years - and Europe, prompting emergency plans
to prepare for its arrival here.
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- The Portuguese authorities are believed to be stepping
up surveillance in birds, mosquitoes, animals and humans, following the
Irish cases. The advice to "cover up" against mosquitoes and
avoid areas near water was issued by Irish and British health watchdogs
after specialist laboratories at Porton Down, Wiltshire, confirmed the
disease yesterday.
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- Advice about US travel has been given before but the
new cases closer to home will mean far more attention being paid to the
hazards of travel by doctors, public health officials and holiday companies.
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- Authorities insisted the advice was precautionary. Dangers
of the disease spreading in their own countries, or travellers being infected
elsewhere in Europe, were still regarded as extremely low.
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- Mosquitoes capable of transmitting the virus after catching
it from sucking the blood of infected birds already exist in Britain but
public health officials believe concentrations are still too small to be
a hazard. However, birds here have been found carrying antibodies to the
virus, suggesting they have been exposed to it.
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- Officials fear west Nile might be just the first, if
not ultimately the most catastrophic, of a host of deadly animal or insect-borne
diseases to arrive here with global warming.
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- The disease, which usually causes no obvious or only
mild symptoms, does not spread from person to person, but governments in
many countries are extremely worried about it becoming endemic, with serious
consequences for public health.
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- It can spread through blood transfusion although tests
are in place for blood from British donors who have been to the US and
Canada from the beginning of June to November.
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- Neither person who returned to Ireland with the disease
this month had to go into hospital. One is said to be fully recovered and
the other is getting better. Both are "mature" adults. Their
sex, home towns, or where they visited in the Algarve were not revealed.
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- Paul McKeown, a specialist in public health medicine
at the National Disease Surveillance Centre in Dublin, said the authorities
there had been expecting the first travel-related problems with the virus
to be reported in visitors to the US, with which many Irish families have
extremely close ties. But there were suggestions movements of mosquitoes
may be changing too.
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- "The likelihood is this is more of the background
noise that has been grumbling away for the last few decades, but it may
be harbinger of something different. We don't know yet."
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- Dr McKeown added: "People should enjoy their holidays
as normal. The best way to protect against west Nile virus is to protect
yourself against mosquito bites. Travellers should note that mosquitoes
carrying the virus are most active at dawn and dusk."
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- The advice given stresses that where possible, people
should avoid areas near water where mosquitoes are most likely to be present.
Long sleeves, long trousers, socks and closed shoes should be worn and
mosquito repellents used.
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- Indoors, screens, nets and air conditioning can be used
to reduce the possibility of insect bites. Similar warnings were issued
later by the Health Protection Agency in Britain. Dilys Morgan, an expert
on the virus in the UK, said: "Although these are the first cases
we are aware of having been contracted in the Algarve, there have been
sporadic clusters of the virus in a number of European countries in recent
decades. However, the risk of humans being infected in Europe is still
thought to be extremely low."
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- People over 80 are at highest risk of death-threatening
complications from the disease when it spreads to humans, but this happens
in probably fewer than 1 in 100 cases. Over-50s are more prone to developing
symptoms than younger people and severe disease is virtually unknown in
children.
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- Most who catch it will never display symptoms, although
one in five may develop flu-like illness with headaches, tiredness, aches
and pains or rashes. Mild cases recover quickly with simple cold and flu
treatments.
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- GPs and other doctors in Britain have for two years been
warned to watch for signs while surveillance of birds and mosquitoes has
been stepped up.
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- Contingency plans say Britons in infected areas would
have to cover up routinely against bites, put screens in their homes, regularly
spray themselves with repellent and empty ponds, water butts or other breeding
grounds for the insects.
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- Last year 264 people died from the disease in the US
alone and nearly 10,000 cases were reported, just four years after its
arrival on the North American continent. Many times that number are likely
to have been infected without symptoms. So far this year there have been
four deaths among 182 cases, but the peak season is only just under way.
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- The virus was first isolated from a woman with fever
in the west Nile district of Uganda in 1937 but it was only blamed for
human illness in Israel 20 years later.
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- Last year one travel-associated case was reported in
the Netherlands and two people in southern France either caught it locally
or while visiting northern Spain.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1269838,00.html
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