Rising Threat of Mosquito-Borne Illnesses - West Nile Virus & Eastern Equine Encephalitis

speaking of Labor Day it usually marks the end of summer yet we are still dealing with extreme heat and we're also dealing with mosquitoes and guess what both can kill you there's no shortage of mosquito born diseases West Al virus Eastern Aquin and sephtis malaria dang fever the orao virus also known as sloth virus in fact mosquito born illnesses are a real concern in parts of the country right now one person in New Hampshire has died of E equin en sephtis or ee three others in New England have been infected Public Health officials in the Northeast are warning about the risks and they're urging people to take precautions when mosquitoes are out the most which is between Dusk and Dawn we're showing you a picture of do faly that's because the CDC also reporting there have been almost 290 cases of West Nile Virus so far this year including Dr fouchy Who is briefly hospitalized with that virus but the West Nile and EE viruses at least a majority of those who get the viruses don't develop the disease and that is good because there is no treatment for either of those and 30% of those who get ee die we just mentioned sloth virus or sloth fever as a mosquito born illness and now the CDC has issued a warning the disease has reached the United States and mosquitoes can spread it it's called the sloth virus because the animals regularly become infected and the virus is mostly found in areas where sloths live it's now endemic in parts of South America there's been 8,000 reported cases worldwide so far this year and that is a huge Surge from the 832 cases reported last year with all these mosquito born diseases and potential illnesses it is easy to get confused and it can be scary so let's check in with America tonight medical contributor Dr Omar aan Dr aan how big of a problem are mosquito born diseases for the average person in the United States well for the average person Caroline it's not too much of a problem and that's good news and the reason why is because if you take for example westn virus the majority of us will not even have symptoms if we get the virus right so 80% of us will actually experience no symptoms but you know rarely about 20% of us will have symptoms and it they all present like flu like symptoms so things like you know fever headache muscle aches maybe vomiting diarrhea and even a a rash if sometimes that's possible as well so you know overall it's not a huge threat there there are thousands of cases that do occur every year and in the case of Eastern equin analitis this is much more rare right we're talking about maybe a handful of cases that occur in America every year now of the mosquito born illnesses we listed earlier which is the most serious in your opinion well I think Eastern equin sephtis is very serious because although very rare we're talking about just you know maybe 10 or 11 cases that occur every year uh it can absolutely result in inflammation of the brain and inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and if you start to get uh symptoms that affect the brain so things like you know high fever coma seizures even muscle paralysis and even death this can be very serious and you know as you said about a third of people who get symptoms that involve the brain end up dying right that's in contrast to westn virus where you know very few people die you know we're talking about you know less than 1% of people who get westn virus are going to die but the rate is much higher for Eastern equin analitis and we know that you know someone has died now in New Hampshire so definitely of concern certainly of concern Dr oan um I am someone who gets eaten alive it doesn't matter what I do I put on Deets I do all the oils and the essential oil I get eaten alive am I more at risk because of that are people who get bitten more Are we more at risk is there something about us that makes mosquitoes want it eat us well I don't know necessarily but I think the bottom line is that those who are older those who have chronic medical conditions like diabetes high blood pressure uh lung disease they're more at risk of getting some of these infections there's obviously Common Sense things that we can all do to help prevent us obviously there are no uh medicines that treat these viruses and there's no vaccine that prevents these viruses but we can do things like put on insect repellent uh where long sleeve shirts pants and just you know limit our time Outdoors right because these mosquitoes are out from as you said you know Dawn to uh so you know as long as we limit our time outside uh we can all do a better job of hopefully preventing mosquito bites that are the culprit and the cause for a lot of these mosquito born illnesses now what are you most concerned about when you when you see warnings that that we are seeing from the CDC about things like the sloth virus or West Nile the fact that these are increasing you know like if you talked about this 10 years ago or 15 years ago we often didn't talk about these type of things but now this is making headlines and the reason for that is there's a lot of reasons why we're seeing more mosquito board illnesses and part of it is climate change right so part of it is the fact that we're experiencing warmer temperatures there's changes in rainfall and this is allowing mosquitoes to survive longer for them to breed and for them to be sort of a fertile ground for them to infect us quite frankly and then also you know there's been globalization and travel right now many more people are able to come from different countries in South America uh Africa and they bring along diseases obviously right this is just a natural part of travel so I think these are going to become more common as time goes on so that's really what concerns me moving forward this might be a silly question but but why are certain areas impacted are there different mosquitoes in those areas that are impacted over the ones that aren't there are so you know if if you take for example westn virus it's pretty much impacting the majority of America 33 States now have westn virus but really if you look at something like Triple E Eastern ecoin and sephtis it's really affecting sort of the Atlantic states the Gulf States there have been some reports in you know states around the Lakes like Michigan but really it involves the Atlantic and the Gulf States and that just has to do with the different species of mosquitoes that result in infection or that caused the infection and they live in different areas or they're able to survive and thrive in different areas and temperatures is the best way to protect yourself still uh using DEET yeah just common sense things Carolyn really just you know insect repellent you know whatever ones you know that the you know environmental you know protective agency recommends uh and just wearing like covering yourselves right like so you know just wearing you know long sleeve shirts you know pants exactly what our mothers and our grandmothers tell us to do uh you know limiting ourselves Outdoors maybe even having you know Shields uh for Windows you know so that you know when we open a window mosquitoes aren't able to come to our houses or apartments you know all these you know very common sense things can really make a huge difference in allowing us to prevent uh mosquito born illnesses America tonight medical contributor Dr Omar owan thank you so much for your expertise and I will try to not get bitten