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When mosquito bites turn deadly
Topics: mosquitos, West Niles virus
Posted by citizenjournalist Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:19:31 PDT
Viewed 1119 times
0 responses 0 comments Culex tarsalis is her proper name. Transmitting encephalitis is her game.

Mosquitoes have spread West Nile encephalitis (WNE) — an inflammation of the brain — across America. With the wet spring we have had as well as the excess Kern River flow through town, mosquitoes are bound to find breeding areas.

This same species can also carry Western equine encephalitis (WEE) and St. Louis encephalitis (SLE), two other types of potentially dangerous viruses that attack the central nervous system, brain and spinal cord. These diseases appear in Kern County every few years, sometimes in epidemic proportions.

A few years ago getting a mosquito bite meant nothing more serious than a few days of itching to most people. Now it’s possible to become infected with flu-like symptoms, though it’s possible to not show any symptoms at all.

In a few days a patient is usually back to normal, but in severe cases where the West Nile virus develops into encephalitis, it can have a devastating effect on the brain and central nervous system, leading to permanent brain damage or death.

Spread via a complex cycle involving mosquitoes that bite infected birds and then people, West Nile is now second only to Lyme disease as the most commonly reported insect-borne illness in the United States.

I have a personal experience with WEE.

In July 1952, after having served a tour of duty in Alaska in the U.S. Army, I came home to Bakersfield on a 15-day furlough before traveling to my new assignment in Texas. The second night after my arrival, I spent the night chasing frogs in sloughs below the China Grade Bluffs. I had to wade to get to the frogs, so I wore only a bathing suit.

That night the mosquitoes bit me many times, but after serving two years in Alaska, mosquito bites were commonplace for me. Had I been aware of the epidemic of equine encephalitis that was in full force at that time in the San Joaquin Valley, I would never have exposed myself to such a danger.

Five days later, the big earthquake of July 21, 1952, occurred, damaging and destroying much property in Bakersfield and Tehachapi.

A few days later I experienced chills and fever during the night, accompanied by a violent headache. The next morning I complained to my dad, “I have a pounding headache and my vision is double at times.”

“We had better take you to a doctor, George,” he replied. “You might have ‘sleeping sickness,’” as the disease was called locally back then.

I found it difficult to keep balance as we entered the clinic of Bernard and Fenderson on Niles Street that hot July morning. After Dr. Bernard asked a few questions and examined the rash on my legs. He performed a spinal tap and shortly therafter called Kern General Hospital requesting my admittance to the intensive-care unit for a suspected encephalitis infection.

I faintly remember a group of doctors examining and asking questions as the pain in my head and neck became so intense I went into a coma for two days. Upon becoming conscious, I saw three or four blurry objects instead of one and felt as if my head would explode.

I tried to sit up, but my muscles refused to react. For the first time I recognized how serously ill I really was and wondered if I would pull through this tough ordeal.

In a short while I realized about a dozen other patients were in that room with me and they were all suffering from the same disease. Over the next few days I went in and out of conciousness and was mentally confused when awake.

The resident doctor treating me explained there was no cure for equine encephalitis, but after treating many other acute cases he had experienced some success in administering terramycin — “yellow gold,” as he called it. The nurse got me to swallow three of these capsules per day as I drifted in and out of reality.

Aftershocks from that big earthquake rattled the old hospital ward every few hours, and I overheard the nurses talking much about the cracked walls in all parts of Kern General. All this drama compounded with the painful disease was soon far exceeded when another big quake began to again shake that old building on July 28, 1952, sending everything not nailed down flying and breaking.

The screaming, shouting and tremendous noise of falling equipment shocked me concious long enough to see the walls and floor of that second story crack open beneath my bed as I again lost conciousness. Sometime later I awoke and all was quiet. I looked around and realized I was in a bed under a beautiful maple tree. As the hospital wing I had been in was breaking up, orderlies had carried me down crumbling stairs, bed and all, to the grounds of the old folks’ home on Mt. Vernon and Flower streets. That evening I was put into a room undamaged by the quake.

The next morning I began to recover my vision and the headache began to diminish. I found I could sit up for a minute and ate some food.

My doctor examined me and announced the great news. “You are one of the fortunate ones, George,” he said.

I was discharged from Kern General in a few days and have not had any serious aftereffects.

In 1953, Dr. William Buss, director of the Kern County Health Department, developed a program to take blood samples and review any aftereffects of the 1952 epidemic. I participated in this program for five years. The object was to gather more knowledge about the disease and search for a vaccine using blood anti-bodies.

This disease’s deadly effects cannot be underestimated when it’s in its initial stage — the damage to the brain and nervous system can lead to a lifetime of misery. Seizures, convulsions, epilepsy and behaviorial problems are a few of the possible complications.

The only defense against the virus is to avoid exposure to mosquitoes by following the guidelines of county and federal health authorities.

George Gilbert Lynch is retired and lives in Oildale.

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