Risk Of Mosquito-Borne Infection Rising For Inhabitants Of Most Of 244 US Cities Surveyed [View all]

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Of the 244 cities analyzed, most were found to have experienced an increase in the average number of mosquito disease danger days each year since 1970. El Paso's increase of 33 days was a larger rise than all but four other cities — Reno, Nev., Las Cruces, N.M. and San Francisco and Santa Maria, Calif. In El Paso, West Nile is the mosquito-borne disease of main concern. In other cities around the world, Zika, dengue, chikungunya, Yellow Fever and Eastern Equine Encephalitis viruses are also spreading. Each of these diseases can cause crippling health problems, and each of them depends on specific environmental conditions to thrive.

“Transmission of mosquito-borne diseases depends on a bunch of different biological processes,” said Marta Shocket, a Stanford University biologist investigating the role of temperature on the spread of diseases by mosquitoes. “It depends on the how long the mosquitoes are living, how many mosquitoes there are, how much they’re biting,” Shocket said. “All of those processes depend on temperature.”

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An El Paso man, who asked that his name be withheld when discussing his medical history, was among 11 people in El Paso diagnosed last year with the serious neuroinvasive disease that the West Nile virus can cause.
The man said he didn’t realize he’d been bitten by a mosquito until the West Nile virus reached his brain, nearly killing him. “I didn’t have any welts,” he said.

Following visits to an emergency care clinic as he suffered a neurological breakdown, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with the most serious form of disease the virus can cause, which occurs when the virus invades the nervous system. He had to learn to walk again and is sensitive to light. It hurts his eyes, and sometimes exposure makes him sneeze uncontrollably. He suffers from aches and has become more vulnerable to other health problems. “I feel like I’m forever inside a cotton ball, everything’s just fuzzy,” he said. “I wound up with a bout of Bell’s Palsy. I lost sensation in half my face, and I wasn’t able to speak anymore. I was slurring my words.”

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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-nile-el-paso-rising-temperatures-play-role-21905