West Nile virus: Cases and risks

Your health watch this morning. West Nile virus, it's made its return. And with more on the concerns, Dr. Kumar here at the Austin-based Enterology joining us to talk all about it. So we were talking in the commercial break. Usually this is something we're concerned about in the summer, height of mosquitoes. We all seen it recently. There's a lot of mosquitoes out and about still. Yeah, with the record high yesterday of 97 degrees. Our summer season extended into October. And there's been two reported deaths in North Carolina. So it raises the issue that we should still be aware of West Nile. West Nile virus is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. Most mosquitoes bites will not transmit West Nile. So it's not something that we need to to be too worried about. But there are cases reported in Texas this year. Yeah, about 80 cases this year. No deaths, gratefully. You know, of the people that get infected with West Nile, you usually have fevers and chills, maybe some neck pain. Very rarely you're going to get neurologic symptoms in which the lining of the brain, the meninges, gets inflamed. But those people that get those neurologic kind of symptoms are more prone to mortality what happened in North Carolina two people died so it's a rarer thing but it gives you know a reason to to teach ourselves how to prevent these things is by preventing mosquito bites right so where you're uh off still that's right today you need you need to protect yourself because like we said the mosquitoes are out and about yeah the repellent is good deep you know and then if you're going to be in areas where mosquitoes are in the forest in the woods if you're hiking you know long pants cover yourself you know and most importantly in our homes you know the rain is coming hopefully soon you know and when the rain comes all that standing water that we have lingering around that's prime place for mosquitoes to breed and so removing standing water is just a simple important routine that i get into a habit of in my house after the rains i always walk around the property and just empty all the standing water that's where mosquitoes breed and just taking these preliminary precautions uh it will go a long way you know there's no treatment for West Nile it's just symptomatic care and so this is a good way to try to do it to understand that mosquitoes are there and we can prevent their bites so no vaccine for West Nile and it's rare that it would cause death right yes so West Nile while most mosquito bites aren't going to cause West Nile of the people that do get West Nile and we posted it earlier the symptoms fever chills headache nausea those things are typically self-limited there's no treatment other than just supportive care you know treating the symptoms that occur and most people come to no harm but a fraction of those people it'll get into your brain system it'll cause inflammation of the brain about 10% of those people do experience death and so if you have the worst complications you can't you can die as we've seen in north carolina so it is something to avoid you know not only because you don't want West Nile just because mosquito bites are nuisance i just had two bites on my face yesterday and it was horrible and so no the face is the yeah i was walking around the edge of my property doing that and i got bit right where i knew they were going to be and so you know they're not pleasant to have so taking routine prevention to prevent mosquito bites will will go a long way they seem so bad right now i was telling you i spent a lot of time outside at night i have a terrible one on my ankle i'm like yeah the night time dusk dusk and dawn are notorious for mosquitoes to be out so you know when you're out when the mosquitoes are out take precautions wear your long pants the deet i should say quick uh happy happy 20th anniversary to my wife don't get bit by mosquitoes and happy anniversary honey it's a big day for you 20 years yeah yeah so it's exciting we're gonna try not to get bit by mosquitoes as we walk to a restaurant i love it congrats 20 years thank you