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Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mosquito-bites-disease/story?id=14437855
N.C. Girl Dead From Suspected Mosquito-Related Virus
By JANE E. ALLEN, ABC News Medical Unit
Sept. 2, 2011
An 8-year-old North Carolina girl died this week from encephalitis, after she was bitten by a mosquito likely carrying LaCrosse virus. Her death and the hospitalization of her younger brother are the latest evidence that a wet spring and a hot, wet summer have boosted the insects' population and power to imperil public health.
Health officials on Friday awaited results of lab tests to confirm the underlying cause of the brain inflammation that proved fatal to the Henderson County, N.C., child. The youngster, whose name was being withheld, died Wednesday at Mission Hospital in Asheville, in the mountains of western North Carolina. The LaCrosse virus, which travels from the bloodstream into the brain, can cause headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting and weakness. It can only be spread to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. It cannot be spread from person to person.
"North Carolina is one of the areas where LaCrosse virus is endemic, so having them report cases is not uncommon," J. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist at a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colo., said Friday. "LaCrosse disease is described more often in children, likely due to the interaction between children and the tree-hole breeding mosquitoes that carry the virus."
As of Aug. 30, there were 22 confirmed and probable LaCrosse illnesses reported to the CDC. The CDC tally consisted of four cases from North Carolina, along with others from Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin...
N.C. Girl Dead From Suspected Mosquito-Related Virus
By JANE E. ALLEN, ABC News Medical Unit
Sept. 2, 2011
An 8-year-old North Carolina girl died this week from encephalitis, after she was bitten by a mosquito likely carrying LaCrosse virus. Her death and the hospitalization of her younger brother are the latest evidence that a wet spring and a hot, wet summer have boosted the insects' population and power to imperil public health.
Health officials on Friday awaited results of lab tests to confirm the underlying cause of the brain inflammation that proved fatal to the Henderson County, N.C., child. The youngster, whose name was being withheld, died Wednesday at Mission Hospital in Asheville, in the mountains of western North Carolina. The LaCrosse virus, which travels from the bloodstream into the brain, can cause headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting and weakness. It can only be spread to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. It cannot be spread from person to person.
"North Carolina is one of the areas where LaCrosse virus is endemic, so having them report cases is not uncommon," J. Erin Staples, a medical epidemiologist at a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colo., said Friday. "LaCrosse disease is described more often in children, likely due to the interaction between children and the tree-hole breeding mosquitoes that carry the virus."
As of Aug. 30, there were 22 confirmed and probable LaCrosse illnesses reported to the CDC. The CDC tally consisted of four cases from North Carolina, along with others from Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin...