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Is this a new virus?

Virus sparks NT-wide warning
By Paul Jackson
April 21, 2004

A NORTHERN Territory-wide warning has been issued after a young child was diagnosed with the potentially fatal Murray Valley encephalitis virus.

The Department of Health and Community Services issued the warning after the child contracted the virus in Central Australia. The virus is carried by mosquitoes.

The warning particularly applies to people living, visiting or camping within 5km of swamp, creek and river systems overnight.

Symptoms of the virus include severe headache, high fever, drowsiness, tremors and seizures - especially in young children.

In some cases the disease progresses to coma.

The department has warned people experiencing these symptoms to seek urgent medical attention.

It said above average rainfall for many regions in February and March had set the scene for increased mosquito numbers and an increased risk of the virus.

February to May is the peak risk period for the virus in the Territory.

The department also issued a warning for the Kunjin virus.

The disease is not normally fatal. Symptoms include fever, headaches and muscle and joint aches and pains.

Both viruses are transmitted by the common banded mosquito.

This mosquito bites only after sundown, with a peak in the first two hours of the night.

Northern Territory News

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9344950%255E26462,00.html

Add this to the list

Virus Closes Western Pa. School, Sickening 200

POSTED: 11:55 am EDT April 20, 2004

CORAOPOLIS, Pa. -- A third round of testing has confirmed what health officials had believed -- a norovirus sickened 200 students and employees at a western Pennsylvania school and their relatives last month.

The 800-student Cornell School District in Allegheny County was closed for about two weeks after many children came down with the gastrointestinal disease. While school was out, the building was disinfected to prevent another wave of infection.

The building housed the entire school district from kindergarten through 12th grade.

In all, 130 students, 16 employees and 54 relatives were sickened by the virus, which is highly contagious and spread through contact with infected people.

Administrators are seeking money from state and federal officials to offset the $155,000 cleanup cost.

There have been no further cases since the school reopened earlier this month.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.thewgalchannel.com/learningmatters/3022750/detail.html

I was about to say "this never used to happen when I was little" but I would have been wrong.

In circa 1963-64, when I was in 1-2nd grade, I remember them saying they were going to spray with c-130's over Dallas,TX. I remember it so well, that I was awake on the Saturday morning in question when the line of C-130's flying side by side in a long row, approached my neighborhood spraying so much poison [of an unremembered type...probably DDT ] that it dampened the cement like a heavy mist, and it's smell hung heavy in the air for hours. I'll never forget the sight of those C-130s flying that low directly over me, nor will I forget that low roar that shook the walls of our house. Airplanes fascinated me!!
That morning had been chosen because winds were totally dead calm. I remember waiting the recommended 1=2 hrs and then riding my bike down the alley through the neighborhood, the leaves still moist and the smell of poison still thick in the many bushes and trees.

I have never heard of this incident since, nor have I determined the insecticide used...but it was for mosquitoes and the spread of "sleeping sickness" [ encephalitis ] No telling what the contact with that poison did to my body after all these years. I'm pretty certain it was DDT. And yes the leaves were dripping with it, and yes I got wet.