Lipkin said his team now is working on a treatment for the infection. The money would go to the Centers for Disease Control to fund research about how the virus spreads and the best ways to eradicate it. Costs of combating the mosquitoes that carry the virus have been left to state and city officials. Federal health officials say the virus is still around, but to what extent will only become clear when the weather gets warmer and hibernating mosquitoes start stirring. Humans may contract the virus, a form of encephalitis, when bitten by an infected mosquito.
Birds also carry it.
Last year's outbreak in the New York City area was the first in the United States. Federal health officials worry that birds migrating over the winter could have spread the virus south. CDC officials are working with 17 states along the Atlantic Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico to test dead birds for the virus. So far the only one to test positive outside the New York City area was a dead crow in Baltimore. The Associated Press.