West Nile Virus

by Nick Coons
Oct 27, 2004

Because of the cooler weather, Maricopa County is ending it's fogging of the area for West Nile virus for this season. However, they will keep fogging on a much smaller scale when necessary. There have been 384 cases of the virus in Arizona

Arizona	(air-i'-ZON-u')
The State of Arizona comprises the extreme south-western portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the east by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the west by California and Nevada.

, including eight fatalities.

But just because the weather is cooling down doesn't mean that we're all in the clear. Yes, it's true that mosquitoes tend to exist here more in the warmer months, but something that we need to keep in mind is that mosquitoes are attracted by standing water. And Arizona

Arizona	(air-i'-ZON-u')
The State of Arizona comprises the extreme south-western portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the east by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the west by California and Nevada.

, with many people having pools in their backyards, have lots of standing pools. One precaution that can be taken for pool owners is to make sure that your pool water is circulated regularly and keeping the system maintained. Circulation is good for deterring these little buggers.

A vaccine is expected to be out within the next few years, by 2007 or 2008. And one plus is that this virus has characteristics that would respond particularly well to the vaccine. West Nile virus works like Chicken Pox. Once you've had it, your immune system has created the antibody that should be able to protect you from getting again for your entire life. So exposing your immune system to certain proteins contained in the virus will cause your body to think that you've been infected and jump into defensive mode with the antibody.

But others are thinking that this vaccine could be too late. Diseases such as this have a certain "novelty" to them. Once they've been around for awhile and lose their mystery, this tends to wear off. When this happens, the interest goes down, along with potential sales for vaccines. When the demand for a vaccine goes away, the vaccine goes away because there aren't enough interested to purchase the product. This is the same thing that happened shortly after 1999 when the first Lyme disease vaccine was released.

This isn't intended to get everyone in a panic. The number of automobile collisions far exceeds the number of cases of West Nile virus. And most people who don't like mosquito bites (as opposed to those people that enjoy them) are probably already taking precautions to make sure their property is relatively free of them.