Mosquito-bitten caged chickens to be monitored
By Brady Snyder Deseret News staff writer
 Daniel
Newman, Davis County Mosquito Abatement District, sprays an oil
compound to kill mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile virus.
Paul Barker, Deseret News
They don't
think the killer is here, but state and local officials want to
make sure they're ready — just in case.
This summer,
for the first time, mosquito abatement districts statewide, in
conjunction with the Utah Health Department and the state health
laboratory, will test mosquito-bitten chickens for West Nile virus,
the deadly pathogen that crossed the sea a few years ago.
In a proactive
move, abatement officers will take blood samples from caged and
bitten chickens throughout the summer. These will be sent on to
health department officials for testing.
"We don't
feel that the virus is here yet, but we are concerned about it,"
said Davis County Mosquito Abatement manager Gary Hatch. "The
potential that it will make it to Utah is definitely there."
For years,
abatement districts have tested cooped chickens, strategically
placed in mosquito-filled marshes, for encephalitis — an
inflammation of the brain, usually caused by a virus, that can
be spread by mosquitos. Encephalitis is dangerous to humans, causing
fever, weakness, confusion and sometimes coma, and has been detected
in Uintah County chickens during past years.
But encephalitis
pales next to the deadly West Nile virus, which burst into North
America in 1999, causing an epidemic that left seven people dead
in New York.
 Mike
Maynor applies a chemical to kill mosquito in the larvae stage.Paul
Barker, Deseret News
The disease
is spread to humans through infected mosquito bites. Last year
at least one species of "overwinter" mosquitos, species
that hibernate during winter, was found to be carrying the West
Nile virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms are
similar to encephalitis and manifest as West Nile encephalitis,
which is marked by headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor,
disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, paralysis
and, rarely, death.
"If it
does come we will be ready to minimize the potential for transmission
to occur," said Hatch, who heads Utah's encephalitis surveillance
program.
Twenty-one
caged chicken flocks will be monitored this summer. Even if workers
do find infected chickens, that doesn't necessarily augur a Utah
outbreak.
"In areas
where mosquitoes do carry the virus, very few mosquitoes —
much less than 1 percent — are infected," the CDC reports.
"If the mosquito is infected, less than 1 percent of people
who get bitten and become infected will get severely ill."
Still, state
health officials and mosquito watchers, like Magna Mosquito Abatement
manager Evan Lusty, are being cautious.
"We hope
it doesn't show up out here," he said. "But it's a brand-new
virus that just showed up in New York two years ago, so we'll
see."
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