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Contacts: Lori Maldonado
Public Information Specialist
(303) 692-2028 - Office
(303) 921-8598 – Cell
Cindy Parmenter
Director of Communications
(303) 692-2013 - Office
(303) 891-8382 - Pager
For Immediate Release Wednesday, October 1, 2003
WEST NILE VIRUS SEASON ENDS IN COLORADO FOR 2003
DENVER – State health officials said Wednesday that
West Nile virus season in Colorado is over for 2003 and that
Coloradans no longer need to apply insect repellents containing DEET
when they go outside.
Douglas H. Benevento, the executive director of the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment, said that tests of
mosquito traps are no longer catching mosquitoes that are carrying
the virus.
The state health director said this has occurred as the amount of
daylight has decreased and temperatures have dropped with the season
change.
“We, at the state health department, are grateful that West Nile
virus transmission season is substantially over for this year in
Colorado,” Benevento said. “I am appreciative that so many
Coloradans have made a real effort to use insect repellants on a
regular basis. I also would like to again extend my sympathies to
the families who lost loved ones to this disease in Colorado this
year and to express my concerns for persons who were hard hit by
this disease and are recovering or have long recovery periods ahead
of them.”
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West Nile Virus – Page 2
John Pape, the department epidemiologist who is in charge of the
department’s West Nile surveillance and prevention efforts,
explained that surviving mosquitoes now have switched from blood to
nectar meals as they prepare to winter over.
He explained that mosquitoes carrying the virus aren’t expected to
become active again until late May or early June 2004, when
Coloradans will again need to take precautions by wearing insect
repellant containing DEET, particularly when they go outside at dawn
and dusk during peak mosquito feeding times.
Because of the intensity of West Nile virus on Colorado’s Eastern
Slope this year, Pape said that the disease isn’t expected to be as
severe in the state east of the Rockies next year. However, because
Colorado’s Western Slope, the San Luis Valley and some central
Colorado counties weren’t as hard hit by the virus this year, these
areas may have increased activity and more cases next year, he said.
Accordng to Pape, this would follow the pattern West Nile virus has
established since it first began moving from east to west across the
United States in 1999.
An epidemiologist who specializes in animal-related diseases, Pape
explained this phenomenon occurs because virus-carrying birds,
living in an area hard-hit by the virus, either die or develop
immunity as a result of being infected. The next year, there are
fewer birds to spread the virus, he said.
West Nile virus is spread, Pape said, when mosquitoes take blood
meals from infected birds and then spread the virus to other birds
and to horses and humans.
Even though the portion of the season when the infection is being
spread is considered to be over, Dr. Ned Calonge, the state’s chief
medical officer who is based at the Department of Public Health and
Environment, said that additional new human cases of West Nile virus
are still being reported to the department’s Disease Control and
Environmental Epidemiology Division. These are people, he said, who
became infected in early-to-mid-September.
As a result, Calonge said that he expects Colorado to record around
3,000 total confirmed West Nile virus cases in humans and perhaps a
few additional deaths before this year’s investigation is completed.
A total of 2,108 cases had been confirmed with 21 new human cases of
West Nile virus being added to the list on Wednesday. The number
includes 42 deaths. No new deaths were reported Wednesday.
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West Nile Virus – Page 3
Of Colorado’s confirmed human West Nile virus cases for 2003, 78.5
percent were West Nile fever; 13.4 percent were meningitis; and 8
percent were encephalitis.
Other totals for confirmed cases of West Nile virus reported in
Colorado this year include 703 birds; 591 horses; 135 blood samples
taken from chickens in the 23 sentinel chicken flocks maintained by
the state and local health departments at locations across Colorado;
and 624 mosquito pools.
Pape announced that beginning the week of October 6, the department
will provide only weekly, rather than daily, updates on the number
of cases of West Nile virus, including deaths, until the review of
all pending cases is completed. The weekly reports will be posted
every Thursday afternoon.
Pape said the change to weekly reporting is being made so that
department epidemiologists, who have been investigating the West
Nile virus cases, can return to some of their other duties which
have been left undone while the major focus has been on the large
volume of West Nile virus cases.
According to Pape, he will work with local health department
officials over the remainder of the fall and winter to review the
2003 season and how it was handled and to prepare for the 2004 West
Nile virus season in Colorado.
He said that next year, the state’s West Nile virus surveillance
activities, conducted in cooperation with local health departments,
county public health nursing services, environmental health services
and the Colorado Department of Agriculture, will begin in May 2004.
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