The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") (09/22/90)
We have been told that there is a serious encephalitis outbreak spread by
mosquitos in Florida. The local news here in Miami has been reporting it's
migration south from northern Fl.
It's impossible to protect yourself from mosquito bites here. Is there
anything, especially as a PWA, that can be done for protection? Are PWA's in
any great danger? What are the symptoms of the disease?
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Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!135!38!The."Bird"
Internet: The."Bird"@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.orgrbraun@spdcc.com (Rich Braun) (09/23/90)
Massachusetts just had an outbreak of mosquito-borne encephalitis, which killed a number of horses and caused two serious non-fatal human infections. The state Department of Public Health can be reached at 617-727-2700, and the disease control number is 617-522-3700. The DPH runs a seasonal testing program which captures mosquitos in several locations daily and tests them for the equine encephalitis virus. In the event enough of them test positive, an alert is put out. This alert led to a hotly-debated aerial spraying program about two weeks ago, which killed off most of the mosquitos but also killed hundreds of thousands of fish and aggravated farmers who were concerned about the market for potentially-contaminated crops. The disease is fatal in something like 1/3 of cases. I do not know its interaction with AIDS. The publicity over this *should* demonstrate that researchers know what they're talking about when they say HIV isn't transmitted by mosquitos, but more likely it just adds to public hysteria over the threat of insect-carried disease (witness the TV ads talking about the dread Lyme disease--argh). -rich
rkw@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Dr. R.K. Wright) (09/23/90)
In <39213@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") writes: >We have been told that there is a serious encephalitis outbreak spread by >mosquitos in Florida. The local news here in Miami has been reporting it's >migration south from northern Fl. the epidemic is St. Louis Encephalitis (SLE) >It's impossible to protect yourself from mosquito bites here. Is there That is not absolutely true. the Culex spp. that carry SLE are active only around dusk and dawn. Avoid being outside then. >anything, especially as a PWA, that can be done for protection? Are PWA's in >any great danger? SLE is pretty rare so certain answers seem impossible, but based upon everything which I have seen, HIV infection does not make SLE different. Also the death rate is a lot less than reported as lots of people have the sense not to go to the doctor with flu like symptoms. >What are the symptoms of the disease? Intense headaches, projectile vomiting, severe malaise lasting up to several weeks. I got mine during a non-epidemic period in December of 1985. My wife alwasys thought the exorcist vomiting scene was made up. >-- >Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!135!38!The."Bird" >Internet: The."Bird"@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org -- R.K. Wright MD uunet!medex2!rkw Chief Medical Examiner rkw@medexam.ftl.fl.us Associate Professor Pathology