The point is that the people who get ill, die or have adverse effects from WNV tend to be the elderly and those with weakened immunse system.
But THIS version attacks and causes severe consequences in healthy younger people.
"By contrast, the rare polio-like variant tends to strike healthy adults in their 30s and 40s. Doctors aren't sure if patients will ever recover full use of their limbs, and some patients can no longer breathe without a ventilator."
[By contrast, the rare polio-like variant tends to strike healthy adults in their 30s and 40s. Doctors aren't sure if patients will ever recover full use of their limbs, and some patients can no longer breathe without a ventilator.
No cases of West Nile poliomyelitis have been confirmed in California, but researchers are looking into several suspicious cases. On Tuesday, state health authorities reported that in the past week the number of West Nile infections rose more than 46 percent to 277 cases, mostly in southern California. The disease has claimed nine lives in the state.]
According to the California West Nile Virus Surveillance Information Center there have been 277 total cases of West Nile during the year 2004.
277 cases in a population of 35,484,453 = 1 in 128102.
Even if ALL 9 fatal cases were due to the "rare polio-like variant" - that would be 1 in 3,942,717
In the year 2000, there were 3331 traffic fatalities in California, out of a population of 33,871,648 = 1 in 10,168
So, the chances are 387 times greater that a California resident would be killed in their car. The sky is not falling.
You can take my bar-b-q spatula away when you pry it out of of my cold, dead, hands.