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Louisiana Health Secretary Discusses West Nile Outbreak

Aired August 05, 2002 - 13:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The governor of Louisiana is urging people to take extra precautions to protect themselves from the West Nile virus. Mosquito eradication teams were out in full force this weekend to kill the pesky virus carriers. The outbreak has killed four people and infected 54 others in recent weeks.
Thirty-four suspected cases of West Nile are still pending in Louisiana.

Joining us now from Baton Rouge with the latest on this outbreak is David Hood. He's secretary with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

David, thanks for being with us.

DAVID HOOD, LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HOSPITALS: Good afternoon, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So we talk about these eradication teams. Is it possible to completely eradicate this virus? This virus seems to love to grow and grow in the United States.

HOOD: Well, apparently it does. And it's only been here for three years. It's spread now to all the states east of the Mississippi River -- or nearly all. And the Centers for Disease Control tells us that no, we won't be able to eradicate the problem. We can only try to mitigate it.

PHILLIPS: So how do you do that?

HOOD: Well, more than anything else, I think, the message is personal responsibility. Getting people to wear insect repellent and clean up their yards of standing water. Beyond that, of course, we're doing very intensive spraying to try to kill the mosquitoes. And we do a lot of surveillance to try to find out where they're going.

PHILLIPS: How bad do you think this could get?

HOOD: Well, I think could get a lot worse. We're at 58 confirmed cases right now. I expect that by tomorrow we may be looking at an additional 20 or so confirmed cases. And we've only been at it for three weeks. We have about three months left of warm weather here in Louisiana. And I think we will see a dramatic increase in the number of cases over that time.

PHILLIPS: Do you think we could see more states affected? HOOD: Again, the scientists from CDC tell us that undoubtedly it's not a question, for example, of whether it will get to California, but only when. So I think that the entire United States sooner or later will be effected. It's just a question of how long that will take.

PHILLIPS: Does that scare you? It sure scares me.

HOOD: I think it does. But we have to put it in perspective as well. I think people will learn to adjust to this. When you consider that only 1 percent of mosquitoes are infected, and of those people who get bit, less than 1 percent come down with serious symptoms, the risk is relatively small. But we don't want people to be complacent. We do want them to take precautions.

PHILLIPS: How are you treating patients that indeed get infected, because it's not a bacteria, so you can't use an antibiotic?

HOOD: That's correct. And what doctors do is treat the symptoms. They try to, for example, provide supportive care to mitigate the consequences of any brain swelling that might occur and to bring down fever and do things like that. But there's no particular medication. There's no magic bullet to cure the problem.

PHILLIPS: Do we still know for sure how it got here? There's a number of theories going around, right? Give us a little history.

HOOD: Well, actually, it started in Uganda in 1937, in the West Nile area. Hence the name of the virus. It got to New York City in 1999, and nobody's exactly sure how it crossed the ocean and got to New York City. And it's been working way down the Eastern Seaboard ever since. It was in North Carolina in the year 2000. And in 2001, we found near New Orleans. So we were expecting that we would see an outbreak in 2002, but maybe not of the magnitude that we are seeing right now.

PHILLIPS: So let's talk preventative maintenance here. Your message now not only to those living in Louisiana, but other states that may be the next target?

HOOD: It's a simple message, really, for individuals. We've declared war on mosquitoes, and we're trying to enlist everybody into the fight against mosquitoes. What people can do is number one, wear insect repellent that contains the ingredient DEET. That's an effective ingredient.

And the other thing is to check their property, check their neighborhood, to see that there's no standing water, where mosquitoes can breed: overturned flower boots, bird baths, any pails that have standing water in them. And that will help a lot.

PHILLIPS: Tell me this ingredient again: You said DEETZ?

HOOD: DEET.

PHILLIPS: OK, and tell me what that is. HOOD: It's a chemical which is effective against mosquitoes.

PHILLIPS: OK.

HOOD: And use of that repellent, and that repellent alone, will provide some protection against mosquitoes.

PHILLIPS: Is that in all types of repellent, like Off -- the usual stuff that we buy at the drugstore?

HOOD: I think it would be in most of those. But there are some ineffective things on the market. Citronella is not going to be of much use to anybody in protecting them, for example. The chemical with DEET is what people need to use.

PHILLIPS: OK, good advice, because we have those citronella candles all over the place. Wow, that's interesting.

All right, David Hood with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Thank you so much. Great insight.

HOOD: Thank you.

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