Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention

Symptoms of infection:

• 80% of people infected with the West Nile Virus are asymptomatic (present no symptoms) (6).
• 20% develop flu-like symptoms including fever, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash. Such febrile illness usually lasts several weeks, but results in a full recovery (6).
• Less than 1% of people infected develop a serious neurological illness, such as encephalitis or meningitis (inflammation of the brain or surrounding tissue. Symptoms include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, disorientation, coma, tremors, seizures, or paralysis. Recovery may take months, and some neurological effects are permanent. Of this category, 10% of people will die (6).

Figure 3.1: A table of cases reported to the CDC from 1999 to 2004 (1).

Treatment:
No vaccines or specific antiviral treatments have been developed for humans, though there are vaccines available for equine animals, such as horses. Intravenous fluids, pain medication, and nursing care is used to treat the symptoms of infection in severe cases (6).

Prevention:
The following are lifestyle habits that decrease the likelihood of contracting the disease (3):

• Changing bird bath water every 48 hours (prevents spread of mosquito eggs)
• Wearing light colored long sleeved clothes
• Minimizing amount of deodorant worn
• Bathing regularly
• Installing bug screens
• Using mosquito repellant
• Minimize time outdoors at dawn and dusk (mosquito’s most prevalent time of day)