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CNN Live Today

Look at What It's Like to Have West Nile Virus

Aired August 08, 2002 - 12:06   ET

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More people are being exposed to the West Nile Virus, and health officials say the mosquito-borne disease will continue to spread. Florida and Alabama are seeing their first human cases this year, and the District of Columbia now has confirmed its first case ever.
Authorities are stepping up efforts to kill mosquitoes in Louisiana, which has the nation's biggest outbreak so far.

Other states with confirmed cases: Mississippi and Texas.

So, what is it like to have the virus? Reporter Janet St. James of Dallas affiliate WFAA tells us about one woman's ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Feeling better?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good. Good.

JANET ST. JAMES, WFAA REPORTER: This exam earned Gina Goudy a clean bill of health.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not having the fever, or the aches or anything anymore?

ST. JAMES: Lousy does not begin to describe had you she felt July 10th when she first saw the doctor.

GINA GOUDY, WEST NILE SURVIVOR: Waking up every morning with a headache, just weak, my face, my eyelids were sore, my back. I felt like somebody had just been beating me all night.

ST. JAMES: On top of that, her body was covered with a bright pink rash. It seemed odd to Dr. Michael Fulton.

DR. MICHAEL FULTON, TREATED GOUDY: I do not see a lot of adults with swollen glands and rashes, and that is more common in children. And with all of the press that West Nile had started to get at that time, it was in my mind.

ST. JAMES: The West Nile virus is transmitted to people through the bite of infected mosquitoes. About a month earlier, the disease had been found in dead birds in north Texas. Dr. Fulton never imagined his patient would be the first human case.

FULTON: I would have thought the test would have probably been negative.

ST. JAMES: Goudy had all of the symptoms -- fever, headache, body aches, skin rash, and swollen lymph glands. She had been bitten by mosquitoes, but didn't think much about them, or West Nile.

GOUDY: Three weeks, about a month ago, I thought I was about to die; that's what it felt like.

ST. JAMES: But she survived.

It took about 10 days to feel better, and the treatment was simple rest.

GOUDY: Glad that I am healthy you over again, because I never want that again. Never. I would not wish it on nobody. Now the West Nile virus is just a miserable memory for Gina Goudy.

Being in the paper.

ST. JAMES: And a newspaper headline for her scrap book.

Janet St. James, Box Springs (ph).

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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