What's behind the recent surge in mosquito-borne illnesses

♪♪ geoff: Parts of new England are on high alert after health officials in New Hampshire this week to confirm to the first death from the rare virus known as eastern equine encephalitis which brings the total number of confirmed human infections in the U.S. This year to six including cases in Wisconsin, New Jersey, and the neighboring states of Vermont and Massachusetts. Hundreds of cases of another illness transmitted by mosquitoes, west nile virus, have been confirmed across 33 states. It paralyzed a teenager in Missouri and hospitalized Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's former top infectious disease expert who told the outlet, I have never been as sick in my life. To help us understand more about these viruses, the risks they pose, and how they spread, we are joined by the Dean of the national school of tropical medicine at Baylor college. Welcome back to the news hour. >> Thanks for having me. Geoff: We have seen the first death from the virus. Tell us more about this disease, how it spreads, and why new England seems to be affected by it. >> It is called an alpha virus and we do see cases periodically, including human cases and deaths, and it tends to disproportionately affect horses and that is where the equine part comes into the name. It circulates among birds and there is a specific mosquito for the birds, and then once it gets hold of the birds from a different mosquitoes can bite and transmit to humans. We don't usually see a lot of cases. I think my big concern is we are starting to see, you know, not only the eastern equine cases but also the west nile cases and there is a big problem going on in the western hemisphere where there has been this big uptick in thank you -- dengue cases. We are seeing an expansion of yellow fever in Brazil to the fringes of the Amazon, so the big picture, I think, is that we are seeing a general surge in vectorborne diseases across the hemisphere. Brazil and parts of the caribbean are ground zero, but it is starting to filter in particularly in Texas in the gulf coast and this could be a new normal for us during this time of climate change together with urbanization and other factors. Amna: In parts of Massachusetts, health officials are telling people to avoid outdoor activity between dusk and dawn. They are conducting pesticide sprays. How concerned should folks in that region be and what more can they do to protect themselves? >> There's not much room for error. This has a high percentage of encephalitis and fatalities, perhaps as high as 30% of the cases, so this is definitely not one you want to get. The most important thing is if you do go outside and especially early in the morning or in the evening, you want to be fully covered with long pants or sweat pants and socks, sneakers, you know, a hooded sweatshirt if you are out in the morning, and a hat. On the exposed parts, makes sure you use a good insect repellent, one that has a high percentage of det. I like to get my 10,000 steps in and I do walks early in the morning, sometimes before sunrise, and in the evening, which is a maximal time when mosquitoes are fighting, sometimes, my neighbors who are out in shorts and t-shirts look at me like I am a bit nuts and I use that as a teachable moment and I will explain to them, look, you have to be really careful because west nile is accelerating right now as well as other vectorborne diseases and there is risk now for once transmitted by the mosquito including dengue and ones that are arising from Brazil so this is the peak time of year for vectorborne disease and is probably going to become our new normal. Geoff: Let's talk more about it because we have seen nearly 300 cases of west nile across the country. What should we know about the spread and severity of the west nile virus? >> Texas is getting hit hard. What we usually see in the United States is a big peak in Texas and the adjoining states in the southeast, Mississippi, and the Louisiana, and then going up into the great plains and there's North Dakota, Nebraska, and then you also sometimes see them in New York and New Jersey where the virus was first discovered. You have bad years in good years for reasons we don't entirely understand. 2012 was a terrible year, for instance. This one is looking like it could be a pretty bad here as well and I am worried it's going to become more and more like this, that every year will become a bad west nile year just like we could see dengue coming into the U.S. Gulf coast and other diseases transmitted by these mosquitoes so the west nile is transmitted by the -- mosquitoes which is why we do insecticidal spraying in the evening and morning. Hades is a little more difficult to control, going house to house, and we tend not to do that much in the United States. Geoff: If this is the new normal, mosquito borne illness made worse by climate change come out what more could the federal government do? >> I think we need to up our game in terms of doing active surveillance for these diseases. Right now, our surveillance system in the U.S. Is extremely fragmented so for instance, if a patient comes into an emergency room or clinic and has what kind of looks like it could be a mosquito transmitted virus infection, present with fever and rash and headache and photophobia, being afraid of the light, and the physician kind of shrugged his shoulders to say, maybe it is something else and by the time you get the test back, it is days later and sometimes, even longer than that because you have to send it to specialty labs so we don't have the point-of-care diagnostics that we need and what we really need to do is have a detailed map, a county by county level, what is in our particular county. One of the things we are doing at Baylor college and medicine, international school of tropical medicine, we are taking a facet -- sophisticated sequencing of mosquitoes, the full genome together with their viruses and also pairing it with wastewater testing so we can get that very detailed map of what is there so when a physician sees a patient that they suspect could have one of these infections, they will already know what is in the flora and fauna of our local area. We don't do that currently. Geoff: Thanks as always for your insights. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. ♪♪