CDC Investigates Mississippi West Nile Case

The woman received 18 units of blood during an obstetrical procedure in July, Dr. Anthony A. Marfin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Four weeks after the surgery, she was diagnosed with West Nile encephalitis, he said. The woman has since recovered.

Marfin cautioned that the woman may have been infected by a mosquito, as other West Nile victims have, noting that she lives in a state with many cases of the disease.

Forty people have died of West Nile this year, Marfin said. They include one man who officials are virtually certain contracted West Nile after receiving an organ transplant in Atlanta. Three people who received organs from the same donor also have West Nile disease.

All told, Marfin said, the number of West Nile cases was approaching 800.

Also Thursday, a House committee approved legislation offering new money to control mosquitos, which spread the disease.

Authorities are trying to determine how the organ donor came down with West Nile and whether it can be transmitted through blood. The woman had received blood from more than 60 people as doctors tried to save her after a severe car accident, and investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were collecting samples from each of them to check for traces of the virus.

It is possible that the organ donor may have gotten West Nile from a mosquito bite, and that the virus can be spread through organ transplants but not through blood.

The CDC was advising transplant doctors to be alert for West Nile in their patients, but that current information does not warrant changes to national blood or transplant policies.

Federal officials have urged blood banks to pay particular attention to would-be donors, screening out anyone who is sick and may have West Nile. But many people infected do not appear to be sick, and there is no blood screening test available now. So even if the disease does prove blood-borne, there is little more than can be done.

"We're obviously very concerned," Eve Slater, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday. "Screening methods can't be developed overnight."

For each person who becomes severely ill, experts believe there are an additional 30 who get mildly sick and 120 others who do not show any symptoms. It is possible those healthy but infected people could carry the virus to others.

West Nile, which emerged in the United States just three years ago, has struck other countries for decades, from the tip of Africa up to Europe and throughout Asia. It had not appeared on this continent until 1999. It is spread by mosquitos, who are infected by birds and then infect people when they bite.

On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation authorizing $100 million in grants to communities for mosquito-control programs. The measure must compete with other programs for actual funds during the budget process.

Too many communities have not have conducted assessments of the problem or prepared plans to control mosquitos, said the committee chairman, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., the state hardest hit by West Nile. He said just 18 of 64 Louisiana parishes have programs in operation.

"While it's true that folks in Louisiana are accustomed to living on a daily basis with `skeeters,' the rapid outbreak of West Nile virus this summer demands that we control more effectively the mosquito population to help reduce the risk of West Nile virus transmission," he said Thursday.

The CDC reported it has confirmed a total of 737 human cases - including 257 in the last week alone - and 35 deaths. Diagnosed cases have come from 28 states and the District of Columbia.

The median age of all patients was 52; the youngest was 9 months, the oldest 98 years. Among those killed, the median age was 76.

In the most severe cases, West Nile causes a potentially fatal brain inflammation. Others get a flu-like illness, with fever, headache and muscle pains, that lasts two or three days.

Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press.

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This article posted October 5, 2002.