By Patricia Morrison, News Editor
It’s been four years since the West Nile Virus was widespread in the area, but a recently confirmed case has health officials on their toes.
Ben Swartzentruber Jr., 62, rural Odon, said he was very surprised when he learned the cause of a splitting headache that hit him April 30.
“I was sitting there reading, and a splitting headache started,” he said about that Sunday morning. “It hit right between the eyes.”
The headache continued with no let up, but it wasn’t until he started vomiting that he went to Daviess Community Hospital’s emergency room.
“They suspected an aneurysm or a blood clot,” said Swartzentruber. When those diagnoses didn’t prove out, Swartzentruber was sent home with some pain medicine and told to go see his doctor Monday morning.
He did just that, seeing Dr. Bryan Porter first thing Monday.
“He asked if I minded going back in the hospital for 24 hours,” Swartzentruber said, adding he would have done just about anything since the pain was so intense.
The 24 hours stretched to five days. It wasn’t until he was being dismissed that the blood tests came back confirming the West Nile diagnosis.
“I’m just very thankful my doctor had an idea of what it was,” Swartzentruber said this morning from his business, Odon Feed and Grain. Through research on the Internet, Swartzentruber learned that it can take six months to a year to fully recover, and a percentage of people die from the disease.
According to Dr. Edward Borter, DVM, “the agent is carried by various birds. The mosquito gets a blood meal from an infected bird and transfers the virus by a bite to a human, horse or another bird. Some birds don’t die, remain carriers and continue the spread.”
Swartzentruber recalls being bitten while cutting grass about a week before the symptoms showed up. It takes about a week to 10 days from the time of infection until the symptoms show up.
In 2002, the area, state and much of the nation was fighting the virus.
This case is the first Dr. William Phillips, DVM, a member of the Daviess County Board of Health, knows of, though some cases can go undiagnosed, he said, because symptoms are not always obvious. It came unusually early in the season, perhaps because of warm weather in March and April that brought birds back to the area and allowed mosquitos a head start, he said.
“West Nile is here to stay,” said Dr. Phillips. “It’s not going to up and go away.”
During the 2002 outbreak, many dead birds were found and many horses were infected. For some, symptoms were mild, according to Dr. Borter, but for about 30 percent of horses affected died from the disease. A vaccine is available for horses, protecting them if given prior to exposure to the virus.
People also can have mild flu-like symptoms, but again for about 30 percent, the symptoms can be much worse, according to Borter.
“Miraculously there were no (human) fatalities (in 2002),” Borter said. “No vaccine is presently available for human protection.”
Sandra Norman, DVM, Indiana Board of Health, suggests vaccinating horses and keeping water troughs, tires and ditches free of mosquito larvae.
The virus is not as serious this year as it has been in years past, she said, but people should still wear insect repellent containing DEET and take other anti-mosquito measures, such as wearing long sleeves, while they are outdoors.
Borter advises everyone to avoid contact with dead birds, and dead birds should be reported to the health department.
