Australia On Alert After Mosquito Virus Outbreak...04/18/00

CANBERRA, (Reuters) - Australian health authorities issued a national alert on Tuesday after eight people, including two babies, were diagnosed with the potentially fatal, mosquito-borne virus Australian Encephalitis.

The outbreak of the disease was described by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia New Zealand (CDNANZ) as the worst since 1974. Five people died from Australian Encephalitis between 1987-93.

CDNANZ spokeswoman Dr Vicki Krause said above-average rain and flooding in central Australia had resulted in large-scale breeding of mosquito types able to transmit the virus.

She warned people to protect themselves from mosquito bites.

"The only sure way of preventing this disease is to avoid mosquito bites altogether, particularly for babies and young children," Krause told Reuters.

Australian Encephalitis is a clinical disease spread by mosquitoes in the country which causes inflammation of the brain. Its symptoms include severe headaches, neck stiffness, high fevers, seizures and, in some cases, delirium or coma.

Up to 20 percent of people who contract the disease die. A further 30 percent are left with neurological problems ranging from memory loss to severe brain damage.

Krause said eight cases of the disease had been confirmed in the Northern Territory in the country's far north and in Western Australia state in the past two weeks.

The cases from the Northern Territory included two babies aged two months and three months, a four-year-old child and an elderly man. One of the babies was in a critical condition in a hospital in Adelaide, South Australia.

In Western Australia, a 45-year-old man was in a serious but stable condition in hospital after being infected while travelling in the country's northwest in early April.