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Area woman contracts West Nile virus
By Juan Montoya
Worthington Daily Globe
Text version of this story

WORTHINGTON - The Nobles-Rock Public Health Service has confirmed that a 72-year-old woman from an undisclosed town in Rock County has tested positive for antibodies to the West Nile virus.

This is the first positive confirmation of the virus in humans in southwest Minnesota, said Bonnie Frederickson, N-RPHS director.

The woman contracted a nonfatal form of the disease and has since recovered, she said.

"One more case of West Nile virus reaffirms our advice for all Minnesotans to take steps to protect themselves from mosquito bites." David Neitzel, an epidemiologist from the Minnesota Department of Health specializing in diseases transmitted by mosquitoes to humans said.

"We have been monitoring the state closely and have known that the potential was there ever since the virus first appeared in the state in July," he said.

The virus has been detected in 41 states and is blamed for more than 50 deaths in the United States.

Given the numerous cases of the virus confirmed locally in birds and horses, detection of the virus in humans was not unexpected by health professionals, Frederickson said.

"Several dead birds from Nobles and Rock counties have been sent in for West Nile virus testing," she said. "Of the birds sent, nine dead birds have tested positive for (the virus). This means that the mosquitoes responsible for the transmission of the West Nile virus to birds and horses are present in southwest Minnesota."

As of the first week in September, state officials confirmed the virus in 256 horses across Minnesota. This number stood at 67 only three weeks earlier.

At least 13 of these cases were confirmed in Murray County, where owners destroyed several horses with the virus.

The virus has spread westward from its original detection in New York in 1999. It first was identified in a woman in Uganda, thus, the West Nile designation.

However, health professionals say that only a small percentage of people become ill after bitten by mosquitoes. Fewer than one in 150 people who become infected will get severely ill.

An even smaller number suffer from the effects of encephalitis, the most serious form of the disease.

"One case of the West Nile virus in Rock County does not mean that Rock County is at any higher risk than any other county," she said.

Frederickson said residents should take precautions against contracting the disease by using a good mosquito repellent, wearing pants and shirts with long sleeves while outside and avoiding outdoor activities at dusk when mosquitoes are breeding.

To eliminate potential breeding sites, she recommended emptying old tires, buckets, clogged rain gutters, birdbaths, cans and other containers that can hold small amounts of water.

(Karin Elton, a staff writer at the Marshall Independent, and Nancy L. Torner, a journalist with the Center for Rural and Regional Studies at Southwest State University, Marshall, Minn., contributed to this story. Contact Torner at:(507) 537-6030, or tornern@southwest.msus.edu.)
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Last updated: February 1, 2006