IRONY: “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result”.
After 38 years of foreign travel while dealing with Ebola virus epidemics in Africa, HIV infections world-wide, and Coronavirus outbreaks in China, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, President Biden’s former chief medical adviser, and the retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gets West Nile virus disease from a mosquito bite in his own Washington, D.C. backyard! It’s another story in my collection about healthy medical colleagues who, after surviving all sort of stresses and exposures during their busy careers, get sick or a serious diagnosis very soon after retiring.
It’s also interesting that this news was released only after Dr. Fauci was discharged from the hospital and “completely recovering at home”. Is there a whiff of “fake news” or simply an attempt to ward off social media speculation about the “real news” of a needle-carrying Chinese drone like in “Star Wars” or “Dune” (I forget which movie had that scene, maybe both).
Most people infected with West Nile virus have no or only mild symptoms when infected. Symptoms may include fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea or rash. Dr. Fauci said he had fever, chills and severe fatigue which felt “like he was hit by a truck.” In rare cases the West Nile virus infection can cause serious neurological symptoms.
People become infected with the virus after mosquitoes feed on infected birds and then bite people, according to the C.D.C. The virus can be detected in mosquitoes carrying it. It can not be spread between humans by mosquito bite; humans are regarded as “dead end” hosts. Symptoms usually occur 1 to 14 days after a person has been bitten and can last three to six days. Most cases (4 out of 5) are not reported because the symptoms are so mild. Like other viruses, people over 60 are more at risk for symptoms (Dr. Fauci is 83!)
To my surprise I discovered that the West Nile virus is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental U.S. It first appeared here in 1999. Infections happen during mosquito season, which typically runs from summer through fall. As of Aug. 20, the CDC has reported a total of 216 cases for 2024 in 33 states so far. Last year there were over 2,560 West Nile infections reported in the U.S. There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat West Nile virus in people..The best prevention against the virus is to avoid mosquito bites. If bitten by an infected mosquito, your chances of developing serious illness are less than 1 in 100.
EEE (Eastern Equine Encephalitis) is another mosquito-borne illness that is now in the news, but it is quite another kettle of fish, if you’ll excuse my mixed metaphor. EEE , like West Nile, is also contracted from mosquitoes who have bitten infected birds and can not be transmitted between humans, but DON’T confuse the two. EEE is very rare in the U.S., but 6 of 12 people who contracted EEE in Massachusetts in 2019 died from it. (Boston Globe 8/28/24) The incidence of mosquito-borne illnesses appear to be on the increase in New England, supposedly spurred by the hotter, wetter weather of climate change. Because of the serious, and even fatal symptoms of EEE a single reported case is enough to launch county-wide anti-mosquito aerial spraying. As one measure of the potential threat of EEE, the waste water from airplanes currently arriving from the South is now being tested for presence of EEE antigens as a monitor of its arrival in New England; even though human to human transmission does not occur.
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