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West Nile 'fever' rising
By WES ALLISON
© St. Petersburg Times, GREENVILLE -- Franklin Carroll, tethered as he is to an oxygen tank, keeps his supplies by his blue recliner at the back door of his air-conditioned mobile home: a pack of Red Man chewing tobacco and a tin can to spit in, a pair of shotguns, two TV remote controls and a bottle of Biorganic mosquito repellent, to slather on his grandchildren before they go outside to play during the day. Ever since West Nile virus sickened a friend and neighbor, the children haven't been allowed out at night, when mosquitoes are most active. Carroll says he's no worrywart, but there's just too much about West Nile he doesn't know. "It could be more widespread than they think," said Carroll, 64. "Now I know every mosquito doesn't have it. But they aren't painted red, so you don't know which one does." West Nile fever has come to the farms and hamlets of Madison and Jefferson counties east of Tallahassee, where the West Nile virus made landfall in Florida two weeks ago. Residents are sending dead birds for testing by the bushel, there's a run on repellent and most people are taking extra care to avoid mosquitoes. Which, in this verdant swath of swamp and timber hard by the Georgia border, is like trying to avoid barbecue, or getting stuck behind a logging truck. Requests for mosquito spraying have far outpaced the counties' abilities to spray, and local health officials have about as many questions as the people they're charged with protecting. "The day they told us about it, I pulled my clothes off the line and got bit 11 times," said Brenda Bautista, who lives just east of Monticello and attended a lively public forum on West Nile recently. "The people with small children are the most worried." West Nile is carried by birds and spread by mosquitoes. It is native to West Africa and the Middle East and was first discovered in North America two summers ago, when it killed nine people in the New York City area. The virus has spread south since, but no more human cases had been reported until two weeks ago, when S.T. Carruthers of the Madison County hamlet of Sirmans developed West Nile encephalitis, a swelling of the brain. Although Carruthers, 73, has been moved from the intensive care unit at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and was listed in fair condition Tuesday, friends and family say his mind remains affected. Carruthers is a shade-tree mechanic, working on cars in the yard outside his tidy white house, and everybody around Sirmans seems to know him. His illness has shaken them. "I didn't know it was this close," Chris Miller, a neighbor, said during a break from mowing grass Monday morning. "That's why I have on long pants today," added his wife, Patricia. At first, Carruthers' wife thought he had a stroke because he was weak and confused, but doctors didn't know what was wrong. Then dead birds in the area tested positive for West Nile, and neighbors started talking. Maybe S.T. has West Nile, they said. The talk found its way to Eanix Poole, administrator of the health departments in Jefferson and Madison counties. "Our doctor got with his doctor, and we offered the use of our lab," Poole said. Tests confirmed he had West Nile on Friday. Dr. Steven Wiersma, acting state epidemiologist, said there is no cause for panic. The virus is rare, and the chance of catching it appears small. The elderly and sick are most at risk of becoming seriously ill, and most healthy people who contract West Nile will probably mistake it for a low-grade case of the flu and quickly recover. It's also not as dangerous as Eastern equine encephalitis, a native mosquito-borne virus that killed a 9-year-old boy in Niceville last week. EEE usually infects one or two Floridians each summer. But health and agricultural officials are worried about West Nile because they don't know how it will behave in mosquito-friendly Florida. The type of mosquito that spreads it up North, culex pipiens, doesn't live here, and health officials still don't know which of the state's 65 varieties will carry it. "Definitely, it's going to cover the state. I wish I knew when. I'm not quite sure how fast it's going to move down there," Wiersma said. Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent the week before last in Jefferson County, collecting 12,000 mosquitoes in hopes of finding out. Meanwhile, the state Department of Agriculture has asked Gov. Jeb Bush for $500,000 for aerial spraying. On Tuesday, the state expanded a medical alert for West Nile and Eastern equine encephalitis to 28 counties from Pensacola to Jacksonville. The viruses haven't necessarily been found in all of them, but health officials have reason to believe they're there. "The main reason is that people should take protective measures to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes," Wiersma said. "We think there is a risk to public health, and we want people to exercise caution in those areas." Precautions include telling people to stay indoors or cover up at dusk and in the evening, when mosquitoes are most active. But Ron Mandziara, the Madison County mosquito and animal control manager, who has been investigating Carruthers' case, has discovered some unsettling news: Carruthers wasn't out much after dark; he was often out during the day. His yard was buzzing with tiny tiger mosquitoes, an Asian species that hitched a ride on a freighter to Florida 15 years ago and is most active in daylight. During a conference call Monday with other state mosquito control officials, Mandziara suggested the current precautions might not be strong enough. "These fellows will come out in the sunshine to get you," he said. "I think it would be more accurately phrased to avoid areas where mosquito activity is present, be it day or night." Three horses also have tested positive for West Nile in Jefferson County, and one died. Ranchers have complained that their farms are being ignored by mosquito control officials, but Mandziara counters he has limited resources and must spray the populated areas first. Jefferson County didn't even have a mosquito-spraying truck until a month ago. Now it's running almost every night. "I had to piece it together with all kinds of used equipment," said Dan MacDonald, the mosquito control manager for Jefferson. "Citrus County donated some stuff, the entomology lab donated some stuff. I bought a surplus vehicle off DOT, banded it all together, and now I got a truck. "It couldn't have happened at a better time." A DC-3 began aerial spraying last week in Wakulla County and was expected to hit Jefferson and Madison counties this week, flying in at 300 feet just after dark. Because the virus is best detected first in birds, health officials have asked Florida residents to report dead birds. Around here, they have responded with a vengeance, sending so many that health officials have stopped accepting crows and blue jays. Carroll, neighbor of West Nile victim Carruthers, sent in a dead sparrow from near his house. "Those two had found it in the yard and they were toting it around, playing with it," he said, motioning toward the children in the living room and shaking his head in exasperation. "They were fixing to have a little funeral for it. We sent it off." The tests came back negative. Health officials have tested more than 200 in the past two weeks, and 27 have been confirmed to have West Nile, Wiersma said. But the buzz over West Nile isn't quite universal. Some residents interviewed Monday and Tuesday said it's just one more thing they can't control, like hurricanes and taxes. "Everybody gets up in arms and scared to death at every little thing that comes along, and there's no need," said Louise Eades, who lives west of Monticello and, at 76, still works for a nursery off U.S. 90. "What you can't do anything about, don't worry about." As for the admonitions to stay clear of mosquitoes, she said, "Haven't we always tried to do that?"
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