West Nile death first in slow year

Until a Marion County man died, Florida had dodged the grimmest consequences of the disease that has killed dozens in other states.

©Associated Press
December 14, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- A year and a half ago, several scientists were dispatched to North Florida to assess a threat from the rare West Nile virus, detected in the state for the first time.

Residents were tense and didn't know much about the new mosquito-borne virus from Africa. Scientists had to admit they weren't completely sure what they were dealing with either.

A year and a half later, West Nile virus is simply another health threat, far less deadly than influenza or pneumonia. Since July 2001, when it was first detected in Florida, 39 people in the state have contracted West Nile.

But this week, a 74-year-old Ocala man, John Albert Kemp, a retired executive for the Boy Scouts of America, became the first Florida person to die from it.

Health officials on Friday confirmed the state's 28th case of the year in an unidentified 71-year-old woman in Sarasota County.

Still, Florida's infection and death rates are low compared with much of the rest of the nation, despite the state's longer mosquito season. Illinois has seen more than 700 cases and 52 deaths this year. Forty-six people have died from West Nile in Michigan; 23 in Ohio.

Experts say a number of factors have helped keep Florida's infection rate low, including the state's long experience in dealing with mosquitoes.

"The fact that Florida has, in the majority of the counties, mosquito (eradication) programs in place, and that we can react and respond to mosquitoes may be one of the factors keeping the number of cases down," said Wayne Gale, chief of the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Entomology and Pest Control.

The widespread news coverage when the disease appeared in the state in 2001 also may have helped. That meant many people learned that they needed to take steps to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes, said Steven Wiersma, the state's chief epidemiologist.

Wiersma and other scientists say the disease has basically spread throughout most of Florida, and is here to stay. The state Health Department put 39 Florida counties under a West Nile alert this year.

But some say it is only starting to reach past the more rural north and central areas into South Florida, where more people live. That could mean the number of cases will increase in coming years.

Kemp had been hospitalized for about a month and died Sunday in a Marion County hospital of encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, caused by the virus, local health officials said.

Through Wednesday, 3,829 human West Nile cases and 225 deaths had been reported in the United States this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

West Nile symptoms include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, weakness and confusion, possibly leading in severe cases to coma. But many people who are bitten by an infected mosquito don't develop serious symptoms.

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