The virus primarily affects birds although horses and humans can be infected. There is no known treatment. Dr. Diane Griffin, who chairs the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says there is no need for alarm.
Infection is remarkably uncommon considering how the virus is essentially always here.
Usually just a handful of cases occur in the U.S. in any year and it can be in different areas. Sometimes there's three or four cases in New Jersey, or Florida, or in Massachusetts, but rarely are there any more than ten cases in any given year. Eastern equine encephalitis is endemic, which means it's always present. The wet summer has produced more mosquitos than normal, so there are more infected bugs detected when health officials take samples. At the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, I'm Jack Sheehan reporting.