LANSING (WKZO AM/FM) –The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the state Department of Health and Human Services have detected their first cases of West Nile virus this season.
Tests on a dead turkey in Barry County, and dead crows in Kalamazoo and Saginaw Counties have been positive.
There are no human cases that have been detected so far. Both Jennifer Eisner at the Health Department and Hannah Hart with the DNR say the birds were actually submitted to the lab in early May and they are just getting the results back. They says this is earlier than usual.
It could be a bad year for the West Nile Virus in Michigan. Cases have been rising for the last three years, topping off with 43 detected cases and three deaths last year.
They figure that because most people get the virus, but never feel ill from it, that there were actually many more actual cases out there.
Eisner says the severity of the disease depends on the health and proliferation of the mosquito population and the National Weather Service is predicting the kind of summer that would be mosquito-friendly in Michigan.
There are certain segments of the humn populations that are more at risk. Adults over 50, very young children and those with compromised immune systems have the most serious reactions to the virus.
Symptoms of West Nile include high fever, confusion, muscles weakness, and a severe headache. More serious complications include neurological illnesses, such as meningitis and encephalitis.
Nationally, there were 2,038 human cases of the virus and 94 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everyone older than six months of age should use repellent outdoors,” said Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive of MDHHS. “It only takes one bite from an infected mosquito to cause a severe illness, so take extra care during peak mosquito-biting hours, which are dusk and dawn for the mosquitoes that transmit West Nile virus.”
