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West Nile Virus 'Here to Stay' 

By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday , October 7, 2000 ; Page A01 

It has spread more than 300 miles since the initial outbreak in New 
York. It has infected three times as many types of birds as last year. 
And it is now being carried by eight kinds of mosquitoes.

West Nile virus, which surfaced this week in the District and in
Montgomery County � and is in evidence between the Washington area 
and New Hampshire � is thriving and expanding, experts said this 
week, and probably will spread across the country within three years.

As officials in the District and the county plan ways to combat the 
virus, scientists said they now have a portrait of a malady that 
is a hazard to humans, especially lethal to wildlife and covering 
ground at an amazing pace.

"Three years from now, I think it'll be over most all of the 
country," said Ward Stone, New York state's veteran wildlife 
pathologist, who has watched the virus since it first appeared in 
the United States last fall. "Three years from now�. . .�it will 
be a national problem."

Area officials, though, were concerned with the present. Though 
the threat will disappear with the mosquitoes after the first 
hard frost, officials hurried yesterday to inform the public 
about the illness, and arranged to spray pesticide as soon as 
the weather allowed.

"We are going to spray," Montgomery County Council President 
Michael L. Subin (D-At Large) said. "And we are going to do 
so as soon as weather conditions permit. Unfortunately, the 
spray is ineffective when it rains, when it's windy, when it's 
below 55 degrees. That's the weather report for the next three or 
four days.

"Really, all folks need to do right now is make sure that they 
take precautions," he said. "Get rid of any standing water they 
may see. If you are going to be outside, stay covered up. Use 
whatever means they normally do to keep insects away. Citronella 
candles, or any of the over-the-counter lotions or sprays."

But some people expressed concern about pesticide spraying.

"I'm not going to say it's not a good idea," said Ruth Berlin, 
of the Maryland Pesticide Network. "If the county or the state 
are going to spray, I'm recommending that they alert the people 
living in those areas about the potential adverse health effects�. .
because the pesticides themselves are also a public health threat."

Last night, about 100 people attended a public forum about the virus
hosted by the Montgomery County Council in Rockville. County workers
spent yesterday handing out fliers about the virus at schools, 
shopping centers and nursing homes near where the infected birds 
were found.

State and District officials announced Thursday that four dead crows
infected with the virus had been found: two from the Rockville 
area and two from separate neighborhoods in the District.

One crow turned in Monday was found along Vallingby Circle, in 
Rockville's New Mark Commons area, just off Interstate 270. The 
second was turned in Tuesday from along Melinda Lane, in the 
Manor Woods neighborhood off Bel Pre Road, about three miles 
from the first.

The crows turned in Monday from the District were found in the 
5000 block of Illinois Avenue, in the Petworth area of Northwest
Washington, and the 5000 block of Just Street, in the Fairmount 
Heights neighborhood of Northeast Washington.

They were tested � as thousands of bird, human and mosquito 
samples have been this year � at a state health department 
lab in Baltimore.

No infected crows, people or mosquitoes have been reported in 
Virginia.

The virus, which was first identified in Uganda in the 1930s, 
is normally not very dangerous for humans. But in children and 
the elderly, it can cause potentially fatal inflammation of the 
brain and its protective sac.

Transmitted by mosquitoes and transported mostly by birds bitten 
by the insects, the illness first appeared in the United States 
last year. It was largely confined then to the New York City region, 
where it killed seven people and made 62 seriously ill.

It successfully "overwintered," and this year its spread continued.

Though anti-mosquito efforts this year have limited its human 
fatalities to one and serious cases to 17, it has alarmed 
scientists for other reasons.

It has, for example, infected many more kinds of wildlife than 
it did last year, broadening from 20 to 60 the types or birds it has
attacked and spreading out to mammals like chipmunks, raccoons 
and bats.

For unknown reasons, scientists say, it continues to particularly 
ravage crows, producing a 100 percent fatality rate.

It has been found this year in eight types of mosquitoes � as 
opposed to last year's lone culprit, the bird-loving Culex 
pipiens � and will probably spread to more. Most such viruses 
are borne by only a few kinds of mosquitoes, experts said.

In addition, several of the new mosquito types have a particular 
taste for mammals and humans: Aedes vexans, for example.

"It's one of the most common mosquitoes in North America," 
said Maryland's mosquito control chief, Cyrus R. Lesser. 
"From the Arctic to Mexico, it's basically everywhere." It 
aggressively bites birds, people and other mammals, he said. 
"Whatever presents itself."

The added mosquito types are worrisome, Lesser said, because 
they may increase the rate of transmission and involve mammals 
as well as birds. "It opens a whole new world to the virus," he said.

The most striking change over last year, though, has been its 
geographic expansion � hundreds of miles from the New York City 
region to almost all of New England and the mid-Atlantic states 
this year.

Last year, the virus appeared in New York, Connecticut and 
New Jersey, said Stone, the New York wildlife pathologist. 
This year, it also has cropped up in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, 
New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maryland and the District, and 
possibly Canada.

If that pace continues, "It could be a nationwide problem," 
said Robert G. McLean, director of the USGS wildlife health 
center, echoing Stone.

McLean said the fear is that the virus is establishing itself 
in regions north, west and south of its original area around 
New York. Next spring, when birds migrate northward in their 
typical fan pattern, they could spread the virus toward the Midwest.

Eventually, if birds carry it to the Gulf Coast, their migrations 
could then transport it up what is known as the Mississippi flyway 
and out to the rest of the country, he said.

"I don't want to seem alarmist," McLean said. "But we are 
concerned."

Stone added: "Because we have a lot of species that have never 
experienced this virus before, at least in the first few years, 
we can expect a very heavy mortality rate in these birds.

"We can kind of think, although it's most likely to be on the 
eastern coast, there's a good likelihood that it will spread 
to all parts of the country where weather conditions and the right
mosquitoes are there to maintain it.

"I'm pretty worried about what it's doing and what it's going to 
continue to do to the wildlife of the country," he said.

Stephen C. Guptill, a Virginia-base USGS physical scientist who 
has mapped the virus over two years, said: "The thing we know 
for certain is that the virus has established itself in North 
America. There was a chance that it could have been a one-time 
event. It could have gone away.

"We know that's not the case," he said. "It's here, and it's 
here to stay."
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http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27320-2000Oct6.html


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