Health officials urge residents to take West Nile virus precautions

State health officials say it wouldn't do either mosquito control officials or the public any good to have more specific locations of West Nile virus outbreaks.

"Everyone should be taking protective measures," said Nevada State Health Officer Dr. Bradford Lee. "The message is universal. We can't tell where a person gets a disease, so where a person lives is irrelevant. Where you detect the mosquito pools is what's important."

While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which limits what medical information a public agency can release, does play into the decision to limit what the state releases to the public, Lee said there is more to it.

"West Nile virus is not transmissible from human to human," he said.

Lee said the state's policy is only to release how many cases each county has had and whether those are human or animal cases.

Department spokeswoman Martha Framsted said people are too mobile to be very good indicators of where mosquitoes harboring a disease might be hiding.

"Humans aren't good sentinels because they are so mobile," she said. "By the time I become ill, how many miles away has a mosquito flown. It shouldn't matter if the person who has the disease is your neighbor. You should be taking precautions. Preventative measures are what people need to take to keep from being contacted by hostile mosquitoes."

Valley parks are being sprayed to try and reduce the number of mosquitoes which could carry the virus.

Among precautions urged by the state health division are wearing insect repellent, long-sleeve shirts and pants and clearing any standing water where mosquitoes might breed from property.

Standing water is critical to successful breeding for mosquitoes and should be eliminated. Screens should be installed or repaired if necessary. Mosquito repellent should be used, especially in the evenings or early morning and long sleeves and pants are recommended during those periods, to keep mosquitoes at bay.

About one in 150 people infected with West Nile Virus will develop a severe form of the illness. Symptoms are high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis, and may last for several weeks, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga.

Up to 20 percent of those infected will have fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes swollen lymph glands or a skin rash on the chest, stomach and back. Symptoms can last just a few days, but even healthy people have been sick for several weeks.

The vast majority, about 80 percent of those contracting the disease, will experience no symptoms.