The disease can be deadly to horses and humans. Ordinarily, only one in 1,000 mosquitoes carries the virus, but recent tests in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Long Island show about one in 100 are carriers. Eastern Equine Encephalitis is a brain infection caused by the bite of a mosquito carrying the virus. Survivors often suffer permanent loss of hearing or vision or partial paralysis. There is no treatment.
Children are most likely to succumb.
Reports of human cases of EEE are rare in the United States, ranging from three to about 14 cases per year. In 1993, a Boy Scout in Rhode Island died of the disease and Massachusetts had a non-fatal case in 1995. In Maryland and Virginia there were five horse deaths attributed to EEE this summer, a number officials do not consider abnormally high. Officials attributed the incidence of the disease to the large number of mosquitoes bred during an unusually wet summer. Officials are spraying breeding areas to kill the mosquitoes.