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Science & Tech.
Mahesh

19/09/23 06:33 AM IST

West Nile virus

In News
  • West Nile virus has been increasingly spreading its base in the five boroughs of the Big Apple, namely Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.
West Nile Virus
  • WNV was first isolated in a woman in the West Nile district of Uganda in 1937.
  • It was identified in birds in the Nile delta region in 1953. Before 1997, WNV was not considered pathogenic for birds.
  • The West Nile Virus is a flavivirus related to the viruses that are also responsible for causing St. Louis encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis, and yellow fever.
  • It is a mosquito-borne, single-stranded RNA virus.
  • In Mumbai in the year 1952, the antibodies against WNV were first detected in humans.
  • Since then, the virus activity has been reported in southern, central, and western India.
  • In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, WNV was isolated from Culex vishnui mosquitoes.
  • In Maharashtra, it was isolated from Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes.
Symptoms
  • In 80% of the infected people, the disease is asymptomatic.
  • In the rest of the 20% cases, West Nile fever or severe WNV is observed with symptoms such as fever, headache, fatigue, body aches, nausea, rash, and swollen glands.
  • Severe infection may even cause neurological diseases like West Nile encephalitis or meningitis or West Nile poliomyelitis or acute flaccid paralysis.
  • Also, there are reports of WNV-associated Guillain-Barré syndrome and radiculopathy.
  • Around 1 in 150 individuals with WNS is likely to develop a more severe form of disease.
Treatment
  • As of now, no treatment/vaccine for WNV is available.
  • Only supportive treatments can be provided to neuroinvasive WNV patients.
Source- Economic Times

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