Health officials expect Massachusetts will see West Nile, EEE every year

[unhappycamper]

http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140222/NEWS/140228649/1994/NEWS

Health officials expect Massachusetts will see West Nile, EEE every year

Bogs and birdbaths are frozen over now, but the approach of spring will bring with it the annual swarms of mosquitos and the attendant risks of eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus and the potential for new diseases to reach the Bay State.

“It is going to occur every single year and we don’t necessarily need to respond as though it’s a surprise or an emergency,” Dr. Catherine Brown told the Public Health Council Wednesday.

EEE has infected humans across a larger geographic area of Massachusetts in recent years with a potential “emerging hotspot along the New Hampshire border,” she said.

While accurate forecasting is difficult, it has become increasingly rare for a year to pass without an infection of West Nile or EEE, which is both more rare and more deadly than West Nile, Brown said.

[newfie11]

1. We've had West Nile here in South Dakota for years

I expect it is pretty much everywhere.

[Beachwood]

2. I think Mass has had isolated cases of West Nile for years and years.

I can remember visiting a friend in Mass a few years back and we had to come in off his deck as the sun got low in the sky on a warm summer evening, for fear of West Nile or EEE mosquitoes. So it has been around for a while.