With a worsening public health situation in the U.S. state of Texas, cities in the northern part of the lone star state are stepping up efforts to educate people on the West Nile virus, which has so far infected 723 people with 30 deaths in the state.
According to local TV channel ABC13 on Monday, the Dallas County area has been the hardest hit, with about 300 cases of the virus and 11 deaths. Workers in the county are passing through neighborhoods to hand out educational materials, drain standing water and use larvicide in puddles.
Other communities in the suburb of the county are providing tablets to kill mosquito larvae and spread word about the mosquito-borne illness by using automated phone messages and social media.
"We absolutely must keep communicating with residents," said a Dallas city spokesman. "Even though aerial spraying has ceased, ground spraying will continue. But we have to keep the public education messages out there because there are still four to six weeks of mosquito season."
Dallas county has declared a public health emergency and carried out aerial sprayings as part of efforts to address the virus, which has infected more than 1,200 people and killed more than 40 of them across the United States so far this year.
The West Nile virus, which was first identified in Uganda in 1937, was first detected in the U.S. in 1999, and more than 30,000 people in the country have since been infected by the virus, which is a mosquito-borne illness that can lead to serious neurological disease in some cases, and its symptoms include sudden onset of fever, headache, nausea, dizziness and muscle weakness.
Commonly seen in temperate and tropical regions, the West Nile virus mainly infects birds, but is also known to infect human bodies mainly through mosquito biting. Scientists say about 80 percent of infections are symptomless. - pna
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=54241.0
