Nile Virus is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause encephalitis, a brain inflammation that killed seven people in New York City last summer during its first known appearance in the United States. Most who required hospitalization were either elderly or immunocompromised. This year, five people in the United States have been diagnosed with West Nile Virus all of them in New York City. That assistance included providing laboratory technicians in the state s Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory with additional training to identify West Nile Virus infection in birds. Up until this week, birds identified in Maine could only be tested at a federal laboratory in Wisconsin.
Maine now has the capacity to do the testing in Augusta.
The CDC specialists also worked with entomologists from the Maine Department of Conservation and Maine Medical Center Research Institute on enhancing the State s mosquito surveillance program. While there is no evidence that West Nile Virus has arrived in Maine at this time, people who wish to further reduce the very remote risk of infection, may employ already well-described measures to avoid mosquito bites, as detailed at the web site below. These include wearing long pants and long sleeves, and the selective use of mosquito repellants, especially during the hours between dusk and dawn. Mosquito repellents should be used very sparingly, especially on children, and not at all on infants. Label instructions should be followed carefully.