This week, the Vermont Department of Health (DOH) said lab results came back positive for the first case of the West Nile virus in the state this year.
“We have one confirmed case of West Nile virus in a patient from Franklin County,” said DOH spokesman Robert Stirewalt, who would not release any further information about the patient’s condition.
This is the seventh recorded incident of a human falling victim to the mosquito-borne illness in the state of Vermont.
According to DOH data, the virus first appeared in a Franklin County resident in 2002. There were three instances of human infection in 2003, and then the virus had an eight-year lull in people until it appeared in two patients last year.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control said that 1,993 cases of the virus have been reported this year and 87 deaths have resulted, as of Sept. 4. More cases of the virus have appeared through the first week of September in the United States this year than in any other since the virus was first discovered in 1999.
About 45 percent of all reported cases this year were in Texas, and incidents in Texas, South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Michigan account for more than 70 percent of all cases nationwide.
The CDC indicates that only one in 150 people infected with the virus fall seriously ill. Symptoms can include but are not limited to: coma, tremors, convulsions, fever and paralysis. Symptoms may last several weeks and neurological damage can be permanent.
Correction: The Department of Health incorrectly reported that the patient was from Chittenden County.
