Millions of people around the world die every year due to diseases carried by mosquitoes. West Nile Virus, a type of viral infection transmitted by mosquito bites, is also becoming more common day by day. While the incubation period in infected individuals varies between 2-14 days, it is necessary to take precautions to protect against this disease, which does not have a vaccine or medicine yet. Prof. from the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology at Memorial Kayseri Hospital. Dr. Ayşegül Ulu Kılıç gave information about the West Nile Virus and made important warnings.
The Culex mosquito is a complete carrier
West Nile Virus causes infection in humans. West Nile Virus, whose main host is wild birds, is most commonly transmitted to humans by the bite of ‘Culex’ mosquitoes. The disease is not transmitted from person to person. More rarely, it is transmitted by blood transfusion and organ transplantation. It is known that it is passed from mother to baby during birth. Culex type mosquitoes, which carry the virus that caused major epidemics worldwide in the past, are also seen in our country.
4 symptoms of West Nile virus disease
The incubation period of the disease lasts approximately 2-15 days. After the infection and incubation period, different clinical pictures can be seen. While some cases have no symptoms, others may be severe enough to require inpatient treatment and even death. The symptoms can be listed as:
1. Headache is often the first symptom seen in the disease that develops due to West Nile Virus.
2. Among the symptoms that mostly occur with flu-like symptoms, back pain is common.
3. Sudden onset of high fever, fatigue and weakness in the muscles are among the important symptoms.
4. There are also symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin rash and excessive swelling of the lymph nodes known as lymphadenopathy.
80% of infected people have no symptoms
It can be said that 80% of people infected with West Nile Virus do not show symptoms. High fever known as West Nile Fever is seen in 90% of symptomatic cases in the 20% of the cases showing signs of the presence of the disease. Nervous system involvement is seen in 1% of total symptomatic cases. As a result of nervous system involvement due to West Nile Virus, the disease defined as West Nile Neuro-Invasive Disease (BNNI) develops. Approximately 65% of BNNI progresses with encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), 30% with meningitis, and the remaining 5% with the type of paralysis defined as acute flaccid paralysis. 1% of all West Nile Virus cases result in meningitis, encephalitis, and stroke. While approximately 20% of the cases resulting in encephalitis die, this rate is between 10% and 50% in stroke cases.
Worldwide cases of West Nile Virus
In our country, between 2010 and November 2021, 107 patient reports were made, 15 of which resulted in death. Since the update last week and as of August 31, 2022, 45 people have been identified in the European Union countries. He reported 5 deaths due to these infections. There were 34 cases in Greece, 10 cases in Romania and 1 case in Hungary. In addition, while 24 cases were seen in Serbia, as of August 23, 2022, a total of 98 West Nile Virus disease cases were reported to the CDC in the United States. Of these, 66 were classified as neuroinvasive disease (such as meningitis or encephalitis) and 32 as non-neuroinvasive disease.