Dozens of residents called a Westchester County hotline yesterday to report finding dead birds, and at least 20, including a turkey vulture and a crow, will be tested for West Nile virus. The hotline has taken some 140 bird reports in two days following an announcement that a dead hawk found in Bronxville last month was infected with the disease. That discovery prompted health officials to open the line several weeks ahead of schedule. Most of the dead birds were reported south of Interstate 287, and there was at least one report of a dead hawk. The birds will be tested at the state laboratory outside Albany.
Birds harbor the virus and transmit it to mosquitoes, which, in turn, can infect humans.
Nine Westchester residents became sick with West Nile encephalitis during the fall, and one of them died. The virus, which had never before been seen in the Western Hemisphere, sickened 62 people in New York after it surfaced in August. The risk of contracting the virus is low, but the illness can be severe in people older than 50, children and those with weakened immune systems. During the fall, the Westchester County Health Department tracked dead birds as a way to determine if the virus was spreading. Hundreds of dead birds, mainly crows, turned up, and 14 were found to have West Nile.