ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609160039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
ONE IN 100 of the biting insects harbors the virus, compared with usual rates of one in 1,000.
Public health officials in New England continued to find new pockets of mosquitoes carrying a potentially deadly virus Friday, even as they stepped up attacks with pesticides in an effort to keep the virus from spreading to people.
The virus causes Eastern equine encephalitis, a brain infection deadly to horses, human beings and a few other animals. It is passed by the bite of an infected mosquito.
No cases of infection in human beings or horses have been attributed to the New England mosquitoes, but scientists said spraying efforts over the next two weeks may be crucial to preventing an outbreak of the disease. After that, cooler temperatures should help cut the mosquito population, which has reached record highs in the wake of heavy summer rains.
``I've never seen so many virus isolations over such a wide area,'' said Theodore Andreadis, chief research entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. ``And what's really unprecedented is that they are not just being found in the swamps, but from mosquitoes in residential areas.''
In Rhode Island, scientists studying a key species of mosquito have found that about one in 100 harbors the EEE virus, compared with a normal frequency of about one in 1,000. Similarly high rates of infection are being found in Connecticut and other areas, including Long Island.
Several days to two weeks after being bitten, human victims come down with flu-like symptoms that progress to include a stiff neck, gradual loss of consciousness, and in one-third to one-half of cases, death. Survivors often suffer permanent loss of hearing or vision or partial paralysis.
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB