West Nile Virus

WEST NILE VIRUS

This is the last post relating to flavivirus which I am going to talk about a disease cause by the Flavi family that greatly affects the lives of humans.

West Nile virus is a virus of the family Flaviviridae. Part of the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of viruses, it is found in tropical and temperate regions. It mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels and domestic rabbits. The main route of human is through the bite of an infected mosquito.

Symptoms and outcome:
Less severe symptoms
· -Mainly mild to no symptoms
· -Fever http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section9group5/files/trans.gif
· -Headache, body aches
· -skin rash
· -swollen lymph glands

More severe symptoms
· Crossing blood-brain barrier
· Encephalitis
· Meningitis

Prevention and management
West Nile control is achieved through mosquito controls, by elimination of mosquito breeding sites, larviciding active breeding areas and encouraging personal use of Mosquito repellent. The public is also encouraged to spend less time outdoors, wear long covering clothing, apply bug repellent.

This graph shows the number of people infected with the west nile virus in the US.









http://health.state.tn.us/ceds/wnv/graph.jpg

This video tells us the status of West Nile virus in the US.