{"id":140794,"date":"2018-08-23T09:07:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=140794"},"modified":"2019-05-15T08:05:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T12:05:32","slug":"avoiding-west-nile-virus-associated-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/08\/avoiding-west-nile-virus-associated-fears\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding West Nile Virus\u2026 and Associated Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human cases of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus are starting to turn up in Connecticut. Public health officials confirm two cases in the state, in Newington and Fairfield, so far this year.<\/p>\n

The state has been tracking West Nile activity every summer for the last two decades, as it does have the potential to cause severe illness in the elderly. But it\u2019s very rare for people infected with West Nile virus to even develop symptoms or realize they have it, let alone to develop a serious illness. Since 1999, 136 human cases have been diagnosed in Connecticut, three of them fatal.<\/p>\n

And while mosquitoes can carry illnesses much more dangerous than West Nile virus\u2014such as dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika, malaria, or yellow fever\u2014the vast majority of the United States is free of them. That includes Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Connecticut has the Culex<\/em> mosquito, or the \u201chouse mosquito,\u201d which carries West Nile virus and less commonly, St. Louis encephalitis or La Crosse. Most of the time infections with these viruses occur without symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news is, the risk of getting one of these viral infections following a mosquito bite is pretty low, but it\u2019s not zero,\u201d says Dr. Henry M. Feder<\/a> Jr, professor of Family Medicine and Pediatrics at UConn Health, who has published extensively about insect-borne disease.<\/p>\n

In very rare cases, house mosquitoes transmit eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) to humans. As the name suggests, nearly all transmissions of EEE are to horses, but if a person is infected, it can be a life-threatening infection. That usually doesn\u2019t happen more than twice a year in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we find viruses like West Nile and EEE in mosquitoes, that doesn\u2019t mean right away it jumps to people,\u201d Feder says. \u201cEvery year EEE is found in mosquitoes; however, only once has a person in Connecticut been infected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spray to Keep the Bugs Away<\/strong><\/p>\n

A low risk becomes even lower by taking steps to avoid getting bitten. The best way to avoid mosquito bites is to reduce exposed skin to limit the potential feeding area on your body. Recommendations include wearing long sleeves and long pants.<\/p>\n

But, acknowledging that it\u2019s not realistic to expect most people to wear long sleeves and long pants in the heat of summer, Feder recommends using an insect repellent containing 20 to 30 percent DEET.<\/p>\n

\u201cRead the labels of mosquito repellents and look for ones that contain DEET,\u201d Feder says. \u201cPut that on exposed skin, and it works for eight hours. There\u2019s no real danger to it. It can be used on babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repellents with DEET work by giving off a scent that ruins mosquitoes\u2019 appetite for a human blood meal.<\/p>\n

Playing Favorites<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s actually science behind the idea that some people are more susceptible to mosquito bites than others. It has to do with the microbiome, or bacterial content, on our skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an interesting study where they actually looked at the bacteria flora of different peoples\u2019 skin, and they found that certain microbiome attract mosquitoes,\u201d Feder says. \u201cAnother factor that attracts mosquitoes is the carbon dioxide that people give off. For example, pregnancy is associated with increased carbon dioxide, which explains why mosquitoes are attracted to pregnant females.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other potential draws for mosquitoes include sweat and a rise in body temperature. They also seem to have a preference for Type O blood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human cases of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus are starting to turn up in Connecticut. A UConn Health expert in insect-borne illness shares some facts to help prevent infection… and anxiety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":62670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-140794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 01:49:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140843,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140794\/revisions\/140843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/62670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140794"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=140794"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=140794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}