West Nile Virus Found in Massachusetts...07/27/00

BOSTON (Reuters) - The first evidence of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, which killed seven people in New York in 1999, has been discovered in Massachusetts in the body of a dead crow, state public health officials said Wednesday.

Massachusetts Department of Health officials said the dead bird was found July 22 by workers with the Boston Parks Department in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.

The officials said the state was testing mosquitoes in the area to determine if the disease was present. Results of those tests will be available Thursday morning.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the West Nile virus was found in mosquitoes because they feed on the birds," said Anita Barry, director of communicable disease control for the Boston public health commission.

"We're making the assumption the virus will be found in the mosquitoes," she said.

She said the peak time for human infection was late August and September.

West Nile virus, named for the region in Uganda where it first appeared in 1937, had never been detected in the Western Hemisphere until it killed seven people and sickened 62 others in the New York region in 1999.

The virus survived the winter and was found this year in mosquitoes or dead birds in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. No one was found to be infected with West Nile virus this year.

The virus is spread to humans by infected mosquitoes that have picked up the virus by biting a bird carrying it.

It can cause potentially lethal brain diseases such as encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, or meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms can include high fever, headache and body aches, muscle weakness, loss of consciousness or rash.

U.S. health authorities do not know how the virus was introduced into the United States, but it may have come from an infected bird that was imported or an infected human from a country in Africa, southwestern Asia or the Middle East.