Birds may have spread deadly virus ( West Nile-like fever) to wider area

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National/World News : Tuesday, September 28, 1999

Birds may have spread deadly virus to wider area

by Beth Gardiner

The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Scientists say that a mosquito-borne virus that has killed four

people in the New York area may have been spread to a wider region by birds

migrating south.

The ailment - West Nile-like fever - has never been seen before in the

Western hemisphere.

Health officials in one New Jersey county started spraying mosquitoes today.

Thirty-seven people have tested positive for the West Nile-like virus, New

York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and state health officials said yesterday. Many

patients, including the four who died, originally were thought to have St.

Louis encephalitis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reclassified the cases as

West Nile-like fever, which is usually found in Africa and Asia. It is

called " West Nile-like " because scientists have not yet identified it with

certainty. The disease's symptoms - fever and headache - are similar to

those of St. Louis encephalitis but are generally milder.

In rare cases, the virus can cause neurological disorders and death. The

elderly, young and anyone with a weakened immune system are most vulnerable.

" It's not on the level of New York City anymore, " state Health Commissioner

Dr. Antonia Novello said yesterday. " It's on the level of New York state. "

The strain probably entered the United States in infected birds, said Dr.

Ned , a CDC epidemiologist,

People contract the virus from mosquitoes that have bitten infected birds,

and there is concern that migrating birds may already have carried the virus

south.

" These viruses do travel with birds, and bird migration has been in process

now for a better part of the month, " Dr. Duane Gubler, director of the CDC's

division of vector-borne infectious disease, told The New York Times. " There

is a good possibility that this virus has already been taken to areas

farther south. We are going to rethink our whole surveillance approach. "

More than 520 dead birds have been found in the New York metropolitan region

and nearby counties, Novello said. Four have tested positive for the West

Nile-like virus.

Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Hudson County officials began using

helicopters to spray insecticide early today in the Jersey City area.

Mosquito-control commissions in several other counties are spraying on the

ground.

No trace of the virus has been found yet in New Jersey, but the state's

Department of Health has sent about three dozen dead crows to a federal lab

to be tested for evidence of the West Nile-like fever.

In Connecticut, the virus has been found in mosquitoes and a dead bird but

not in people.

New York City has been spraying pesticides for several weeks.