Transcript:
Today marks the start of summer – a time for swimming with the kids, cooking out with friends, and fighting off mosquitoes.
These annoying insects can spread dangerous diseases like West Nile virus.
Most people who are infected with West Nile have no symptoms, but some suffer a headache. And in severe cases, the virus infects the brain and can cause neurological damage.
Haley: “So paralysis or cloudy consciousness, disorientation, and so forth, and that can be fatal.”
Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center says West Nile outbreaks tend to occur after winters with few hard freezes and a lot of rain.
Haley: “Warm, wet winters then lead to amplification of the virus early in the summer, so that by midsummer, you start getting mosquitoes biting humans and you start seeing cases in the mid-to-late summer.”
During warm weather, people also tend to spend more time outside, and mosquitoes bite more.
So global warming could amplify the risks of West Nile and make it even more critical for public health officials to monitor and control mosquitoes and people to protect themselves from bites.
Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media
