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COPYRIGHT 2003 International Medical News Group
West Nile virus may march westward this summer, spreading disease in record numbers in the Great Plains, the West, and Alaska, two Harvard University researchers predict.
Physicians are being urged to stay alert to the possibility of diagnosing West Nile virus in their patients, even if the virus has not been a factor in their communities in previous years.
Cases in wild and domestic birds and mammals have been confirmed across the southern United States, Michigan, and Minnesota, and two suspected human cases of West Nile virus in Louisiana are being studied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a possible early indicator of the 2003 West Nile virus season.
"In 2002, West Nile virus made a furious dash across the nation during what was a hot, dry summer, spreading to 44 states, the District of Columbia, and 5 Canadian provinces," said Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University, Boston, during a press teleconference in mid-May.
This year, states previously spared or barely affected-Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska-may be vulnerable to the mosquito-borne illness because of warmer-than-normal winter conditions followed by heat waves and drought in the spring and...
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