[Wil H]

While West Nile Virus is "natural", the incidence of cases and deaths in this country is not, they are sharply up this year from 5 deaths last year, 7 in 2000, and 2 in 1999. So if this is an exponentially increasing trend, as it appears to be, figure on thousands of deaths next year, and hundreds of thousands in 2004. But don't worry, we should concentrate on catching that pesky sniper before he gets into double figures...

Death by WNV that was instigated by malicious release of infected mosquitoes is no more "natural" than that caused by Anthrax in your mail or a sniper's bullet.

The only difference is that a lone sniper isn't likely to kill 164 people in a year let alone thousands..

[Alberta's Child]

So if this is an exponentially increasing trend, as it appears to be, figure on thousands of deaths next year, and hundreds of thousands in 2004.

So there you go -- You've made a reasonable prediction, so let's just sit back and see what happens.

One thing to remember, though. A virus isn't likely to kill anyone after they've already been exposed to it and only showed mild symptoms. Even if the symptoms are mild, the infected person's body has developed an immunity to it just by fighting it off.

There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the rise in incidence of West Nile in the U.S. For one thing, there are far more people traveling here from other parts of the world today than there were even ten years ago. The virus appears to have spread from the Northeast and across the Midwest, which is consistent with the fact that most international travelers are likely to land in the U.S. somewhere in an east coast city. Also, it's entirely possible that there were quite a few cases of West Nile that were not properly diagnosed back in 1997 -- an 80 year-old man with flu-like symptoms who took a turn for the worse and died could easily have been diagnosed with something else. Like "death by natural causes."