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Dallas declares state of emergency due to West Nile virus, 9 dead

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Z

Zebra

Member
DALLAS - Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins declared a public health emergency in Dallas County Thursday due to the West Nile virus epidemic in the area.

Jenkins instructed the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department to file a local disaster declaration with the state.

“This declaration will expand our avenues for assistance in our ongoing battle with West Nile virus," Jenkins said. "We are in constant communication with our state and regional partners. We will continue to make data and research driven decisions in seeking to supplement the outstanding work of Dallas County’s director of Health and Human Services (DCHHS) Zachary Thompson."

Jenkins organized a work session on Friday, August 10, with county, state and federal health and emergency management officials to discuss their response to the virus outbreak. They will hold a press conference afterward to share any pertinent information, updates and decisions reached.

There have been nine West Nile-related deaths in Dallas County this summer and 12 overall in North Texas.
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From WFAA - http://www.wfaa.com/news/health/west-nile/Dallas-County-declares-state-of-emergency-due-to-West-Nile-165675936.html


If you want to see how disproportionately effected the north Texas region has been relative to the rest of the country, this map is helpful:
http://diseasemaps.usgs.gov/wnv_us_human.html

It seems they're going to start aerial pesticide sprays soon (which has been controversial), and hopefully that will be able to contain it even as the virus approaches its seasonal decline, but it's sad nonetheless.


Bulbo Urethral Baggins said:
WNV_07August_2012_a.jpg

A map from the CDC
Click to expand...
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Positive test results*
Alabama 4
Arizona 7
Arkansas 6
California 13
Colorado 3
Florida 4
Georgia 4
Idaho 1
Illinois 3
Indiana 2
Iowa 3
Kansas 8
Kentucky 1
Louisiana 39
Michigan 4
Minnesota 1
Mississippi 39
Missouri 1
Nebraska 3
New Jersey 1
New York 1
Ohio 2
Oklahoma 22
South Carolina 1
South Dakota 12
Texas 205
Click to expand...

Thats a huge amount

man I hate mosquitoes.
 
B

Bulbo Urethral Baggins

Banned
carfo said:
Fuck mosquitoes. Completely pointless insects.
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They're bird food. Other than that, yeah. Malaria-carrying sons of bitches.

Found this article on what it would be like without mosquitoes. Basically, GREAT.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

Every day, Jittawadee Murphy unlocks a hot, padlocked room at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, to a swarm of malaria-carrying mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). She gives millions of larvae a diet of ground-up fish food, and offers the gravid females blood to suck from the bellies of unconscious mice — they drain 24 of the rodents a month. Murphy has been studying mosquitoes for 20 years, working on ways to limit the spread of the parasites they carry. Still, she says, she would rather they were wiped off the Earth.
Click to expand...
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Riggs said:
What kind of death do you have from West Nile Virus? Anything on Ebola level?
Click to expand...
Most of the time it's just like a version of the flu that gives body aches like a motherfucker. Occasionally it infects worse and you get brain swelling, which can put you unconscious or just severely out of it, with weird nerve behavior. I wonder if the high number of deaths in Dallas is because they have a more deadly strain of the virus or if the infamously unhealthy community has something to do with it.
 
R

Riggs

Banned
Dice said:
Most of the time it's just like a version of the flu that gives body aches like a motherfucker. Occasionally it infects worse and you get brain swelling, which can put you unconscious or just severely out of it, with weird nerve behavior. I wonder if the high number of deaths in Dallas is because they have a more deadly strain of the virus or if the infamously unhealthy community has something to do with it.
Click to expand...

Bulbo Urethral Baggins said:
It's not like Ebola. Most people who have it don't even have symptoms.
Click to expand...

Thanks for info guys.
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Ah yeah, I should have specified that I was talking about those who have symptoms, which only occur about 20% of the time.
 
B

Bulbo Urethral Baggins

Banned
Dice said:
Ah yeah, I should have specified that I was talking about those who have symptoms, which only occur about 20% of the time.
Click to expand...

Found this:
At its most serious, it can cause permanent neurological damage and can be fatal. Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) symptoms include the rapid onset of severe headache, high fever, stiff neck, confusion, loss of consciousness (coma), and muscle weakness. Death may occur in some instances.
 
J

Javaman

Member
This year has been terrible for mosquitos in my part of SC. I had a feeling it was going to be bad after such a dissapointing winter. We barely had any freezes to kill them off. Hopefully this winter will give us a deep freeze. Those thing can go to hell for all I care.
 
C

cajunator

Banned
I live next the the largest swamp in North america as well as mosquito central. Spraying does seem to help and it shouldnt even be controversial. you cant really see or smell the stuff once its been sprayed and it works. But really, mosquitos arent a big deal and your chance of contracting this disease from one is EXTREMELY rare.
 
T

themadcowtipper

Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
I got it a couple years ago, didn't know until I gave blood.
Went to doctor and everything is fine now. Still it is time to bring back DDT.
 
K

kirblar

Member
The issue w/ West Nile is that it normally doesn't affect healthy adults all that much, but does a ton of damage to Seniors/infants/immune suppressed people, right?
 
T

themadcowtipper

Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
Mikey Jr. said:
You guys ever sleep with a mosquito in your room?

A fate worse than death.
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You get used to mosquitos living in the Gulf south. They have trucks going around spraying once a week. I believe the mosquitos have become immune. They are the new roaches,nothing kills them.
 
M

mug

Member
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Well, time to move out of Dallas. I'm still seeing the spray trucks driving around at 1am. I guess they aren't effective.
 
A

aristotle

Member
The Main Event said:
This news makes me shit my pants.
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That's not one of the symptoms of WNV.

Anecdote: I live about 2 hours east of DFW. I saw them spraying early this morning because of the news. It's the first I've seen them ever do that, especially since this isn't a heavily populated area. Mass hysteria FTW!
 
S

satori

Member
Mikey Jr. said:
You guys ever sleep with a mosquito in your room?

A fate worse than death.
Click to expand...

Don't think you can call it sleep homie. Lights off you hear that horrible buzzing. Turn on the light and that fucker goes into stealth mode. What's worse is that it loves to buzz around your ear. One time one flew right into my fucking ear. Man having those demon spawn flapping around in your ear just plain sucks.

To catch it/destroy it. I literally make myself bait and wait for it to suck my blood then I will make it into a bloody goop. Makes my blood boils when you fine one high up on the wall all plumped from your blood. I hate those things so much.... Rather have that spider in my ear than deal with those blood sucker.... Ok maybe not lol.
 
T

themadcowtipper

Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
aristotle said:
That's not one of the symptoms of WNV.

Anecdote: I live about 2 hours east of DFW. I saw them spraying early this morning because of the news. It's the first I've seen them ever do that, especially since this isn't a heavily populated area. Mass hysteria FTW!
Click to expand...

They spray every week here, it does nothing. Only thing that kills those fuckers are cold.
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
WNv is a pretty random virus, in some areas a huge percent of the mosquitoes have it and this is a really bad year after last year had almost no WNv.

80% of the time has no symptoms and goes away
19% of the time you get flu-like symptoms
1% of the time your brain swells and you get brain damage and might die

The elderly and immune compromised are at greater risk but it's believed some people are genetically more or less susceptible. A susceptible healthy adult can still get brain damaged.
 
G

Gamecocks625

Member
Javaman said:
This year has been terrible for mosquitos in my part of SC. I had a feeling it was going to be bad after such a dissapointing winter. We barely had any freezes to kill them off. Hopefully this winter will give us a deep freeze. Those thing can go to hell for all I care.
Click to expand...

Where are you at in SC? Here in Columbia they are freaking everywhere. Doesn't help living in basically a forest though.
 
C

cajunator

Banned
themadcowtipper said:
You get used to mosquitos living in the Gulf south. They have trucks going around spraying once a week. I believe the mosquitos have become immune. They are the new roaches,nothing kills them.
Click to expand...

SO true.
A lot of people in Louisiana avoid having standing water in any kind of basin to avoid creating a mosquito breeding ground.
 
G

ghostofsparta

Member
Aw crap. I get bit by mosquitoes all the time and recently my body has been aching like a mother fucker, but only when I wake up. Am I already dead?
 
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