A second death from Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) has been reported in Connecticut, officials said during Tuesday afternoon press conference.
Only two cases – in older adults in East Lyme and Old Lyme – had been confirmed in the sate, making the fatality rate for the mosquito-borne virus 100 percent for the moment.
Generally, EEE is thought to kill about every one in three people who contract the disease, which is usually only diagnosed in five to 10 people a year the US.
But this year has been unique. Already an estimated 10 people have died of EEE in 2019 – a phenomenon that Connecticut Lt Governor Susan Bysiewicz said ‘we know is an effect of climate change.’
She and other health officials also said that this year’s two fatalities were the first EEE deaths reported in Connecticut since 2013.
Two out of the two EEE patients confirmed in Connecticut have now died, health officials said Tuesday. The virus is primarily spread by salt marsh mosquitoes (pictured, file) there
Despite the alarming spread of the virus, Lt Governor Bysiewicz plead with Connecticut residents to not panic.
State epidemiologist Matthew Carter said that the two deceased people had likely been bitten and infected in the last week of August first week of September.
He added that already the health department had seen a substantial decline in mosquitoes – especially salt marsh variety that has driven most of this year’s EEE cases – an encouraging sign the surge may be subsiding.
Two more deaths from the rare mosquito-borne virus, Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) have been reported, bringing the US total to nine for this year.
Patricia Shaw, 77, a Connecticut resident, was the first patient in Connecticut to die, according to a local NBC affiliate.
A typical year sees just five to 10 cases of EEE in the US, but 2019 has been exceptional, with nearly as many deaths as expected cases, and dozens of patients in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Michigan.
Warm temperatures and the movement of more people into previously uninhabited, swampy areas has driven up cases of the usually rare disease that kills one in three people infected.
Although anyone can potentially contract the disease if bitten by a mosquito with the virus, it is most likely to turn life-threatening for older people.
Young children and those with weakened immune systems are more vulnerable, too, but less likely to be spending time in the areas where EEE-infected mosquitoes thrive.
Shaw was the first person to die of EEE in Connecticut and the second case overall in the state this year.
Her community in Southeastern Connecticut remembers the 77-year-old as a ‘kind and gentle’ wife and mother, said Fr Brian Maxwell of Shaw’s church in East Lyme.
No one had died of EEE in the state since 2013. And Longworth was the second person to die in Massachusetts this year, but the number of cases there has climbed to 10, health officials there said Friday.
Cases are more common on the East Coast of the US, mostly concentrated in Florida.
Grandfather and carpenter, James Longworth, died of EEE in Massachusetts at age 78, his family said
EEE thrives in warm swampy areas where standing water provides plentiful food and a fertile breeding ground.
So mosquitoes proliferate in swampy Florida, bite the birds that spend their winters there, which then migrate back to New England, where native mosquitoes bite them, contract the virus, then bite humans (and other animals).
It’s not just that there are more mosquitoes. As property becomes more scarce, people move into previously uninhabited areas, including the swampy ones where EEE mosquitoes and birds live.
‘In the upland swamp areas’ – like parts of Massachusetts – there’s more development in those areas, people are living closer to those wilder areas,’ Dr Thomas Unnasch, a University of South Florida professor of infectious diseases and expert on EEE, told DailyMail.com in a recent interview.
‘I’m a great example. Here in Florida, I live next to a nature conservancy. It’s just beautiful. And it’s a beautiful habitat for EEE – and I paid extra money to live next to that!
And as more parts of the US stay warmer for longer into the year, more of the virus circulates as well.
The result has been an unprecedented number of horse and human cases of the disease in the US this year.
The affected states have been spraying insecticide regularly and warning residents to wear DEET insect repellent and watch for signs and symptoms of the infection.
Symptoms are, at first, like those of flu: high fever, headache, fatigue and nausea or vomiting, usually appearing between four and 10 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito.
But they can progress to loss of appetite, diarrhea, neck stiffness and dangerous brain-swelling.
Once the infection reaches the brain, the resulting swelling – encephalitis – can be life threatening, killing up to a third of patients that reach this stage.
And doctors are relatively helpless to treat it.
Once the infection reaches the brain, the resulting swelling – encephalitis – can be life threatening, killing up to a third of patients that reach this stage.
And doctors are relatively helpless to treat it.
In a hospital setting, patients may be placed on life support and given IV fluids, but antibiotics are useless against viruses, and scientists have yet to discover an anti-viral therapy.
In Michigan, where eight people have contracted EEE, Gregg McChesney became the third in the state to die of the virus – after just a nine-day battle with the illness.
Earlier this month, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts – which has seen more cases than any other state in the US this year – plead with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to share any research they have on similar viruses, in the hopes this might provide clues to possible EEE treatments.