The Threat of West Nile Virus

Every so often, the world is alerted to a nasty new health threat that causes a bit of a panic. As time passes, the threat fades into the background and the threat is discounted. The threat of the West Nile Virus is one such subject.

Despite the name, West Nile Virus is in reality a form of Encephalitis. It is a virus that acts like an infection within the body. For most people, the disease has little or no impact on them, but it can be deadly for some.

If you are infected with West Nile Virus, you may not even know it. Most people show few or no symptoms. A minority, however, will go through a three to five day incubation period and then things can get very bad.

While most people get through the infection in 10 days, a minority fall into a near coma with fever, weakness, chills, sweating and general misery. Nausea can follow as well as gastrointestinal issues.

Even in these bad cases, most people will start to recover after a couple of weeks. For a very unfortunate few, however, the spinal cord and brain can be infected. Death can result, but is not definite.

When these types of diseases pop up in the media, there is a certain element of safety in knowing they really only exist in far off places. This is not the case with West Nile Virus. It is killing people here in North America right now.

The figures are probably going to surprise you. West Nile came on the scene in 1999, but only 18 people died from it during the next three years. That number jumped to 284 in 2002. Now a bit more than 100 a year suffer this fate.

How did West Nile spread around the world? It is carried by birds. These birds are then bitten by mosquitoes. A percentage of these same mosquitoes then bite you and me, which results in the infection being spread.

This behooves you to take steps to limit your exposure to mosquitoes. First, get rid of sitting water around your home. That is where mosquitoes breed. Second, wear natural mosquito repellent that will keep the disease spreaders off of you.

Mosquitoes in general are the transporters of many deadly diseases, not just West Nile Virus. If you eliminate mosquitoes around your living space, West Nile Virus and other diseases become less of a concern.

Article Source: http://www.yourarticle.info

John Grimmes is with All Terrain - natural products for the outdoor lifestyle including insect repellent, natural remedies, kids outdoors protection and more.

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