OCALA -- A 74-year-old man died at a hospital from complications from West Nile virus, marking the first death from the mosquito-borne illness this year in Florida, the Marion County Health Department director said Thursday.

The victim, whose name was not being released by health officials, had been hospitalized for about a month and died Sunday, said Dr. Nathan Grossman.

The patient died from encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, caused by the virus, said Grossman, who would not identify where the man was hospitalized.

Friends of the man identified him as John Albert Kemp, a retired executive of the Boy Scouts of America and a Navy veteran, reported the Ocala Star-Banner.

There have been 26 confirmed cases of human West Nile in Florida this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health officials.

This is the first death believed to be attributed to West Nile in Florida since the virus was first detected in the state in July 2001.

Through Wednesday, 3,829 human West Nile cases and 225 deaths had been reported in the United States this year, according to the CDC.

Suit against St. Petersburg nursing home can proceed

TALLAHASSEE -- People who sue nursing homes don't have to comply with the tougher restrictions imposed by state law on medical malpractice lawsuits, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The decision allows the widow of a man who died in Bon Secours Maria Manor in St. Petersburg in April 1998 to sue. The lawsuit contends that the nursing home didn't take proper care of Albert Redway, who died at age 92.

The state's high court dismissed arguments by Bon Secours that the lawsuit by Pauline Lang-Redway should be dismissed because she didn't follow the steps outlined in law for people who want to file medical malpractice lawsuits.

But Lang-Redway's lawsuit is based on Florida's nursing home residents' rights law, not on its medical malpractice law, Justice Leander Shaw wrote for the Supreme Court.

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