New case of West Nile virus reported in Keys

BY Jennifer Babson

West Nile fever seems to be coming from Cuba

KEY WEST -- A third person in the Florida Keys was diagnosed Monday with encephalitis contracted from the bite of a mosquito carrying the West Nile virus.

The latest victim, the seventh in the state, is a 54-year-old Lower Keys nurse who was bitten at Sugarloaf Key, about a mile from where a 50-year-old man is believed to have contracted the virus last month, said Dr. R.C. ``Jake'' Rutherford, Monroe County's health director.

The woman, whose name is not being released, contracted the virus around Aug. 26, Rutherford said, though she didn't require hospitalization.

SYMPTOMS REPORTED

``She had trouble thinking, had lots of headaches, a stiff neck,'' Rutherford said.

``She happened to be talking to a healthcare person who said, `You ought to get checked for West Nile.' ''

On Friday, a 73-year-old Washington County woman was diagnosed with West Nile virus in the Panhandle, two days after a second person was confirmed as having contracted the virus in the Keys.

Florida's first human case of West Nile-related encephalitis was confirmed in July in Madison County, said April Crowley, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

Though West Nile hasn't shown up in humans in Miami-Dade or Broward counties, birds from both areas tested positive for the virus last week.

COUNTIES ON ALERT

Thirty-six Florida counties are now on a medical alert for the mosquito-borne West Nile, which poses the greatest threat to elderly people and those with immune problems.

The Keys have been under a medical alert since Aug. 24, when lab tests confirmed that a 73-year-old Sarasota County tourist tested positive for the illness.

``This is not a surprise when you consider bird migration patterns,'' Crowley said. ``People are thinking that with the weather changing they don't have to worry about this anymore, but we still have a few more months of mosquito season left.''

JENNIFER BABSON
jbabson@herald.com

September 24, 2001

Comments:

Apparently there is West Nile fever in the Florida Keys (see footnote below). Given the bird vector of the disease, migratory patterns, and geography, one could logically presume that it is coming from Cuba.

For a long time Castro is believed to be experimenting with this virus, apparently having obtained it from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Castro has also been reported to have taken a unhealthy interest in migratory birds, the story goes that a naive bird scientist in Cuba protested some changes in his research program, and the Cuban authorities response was to the effect 'stupid, do you think the comandante (Castro) cares about the birds?'

More dangerously Castro's research biotech institutes --now so interested in biowar-- have the technological ability to greatly increase the virulence of the virus.

On a less malevolent level it could be that Castro's censor happy health authorities, ever zealous to preserve the undeserved reputation of Cuba's health programs, may be merely keeping an epidemic of West Nile fever under wraps.

However, whether deliberate and accidental spread, West Nile Fever from frost free, and now very mosquito plagued, Cuba is a danger to the US in this respect. One has only to recall history Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed and Yellow Fever to realize why.

Courtesy of Larry Daley

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