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CNN Live Today

Interview with Douglas Easterbrook

Aired August 20, 2002 - 10:43   ET

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

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We turn our attention now to health news here in the States, and concerns about the spread of West Nile virus here. The CDC and P says that there are now more than 250 confirmed cases of the disease across the country. The virus has now been found in humans in 12 states and in animals in 25 states.
Our medical news correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now to talk some more about West Nile and some of the risks -- good morning, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon. You are absolutely right, and the numbers are just increasing without question. Just last week, 160 cases. Now, as you mention, Leon, 251 cases.

Get a look at the map now behind me, and you can actually see that the number of cases in both humans and animals are starting to increase. This started in 1999 as sort of a small virus in the state of New York, and actually made its way down the Eastern seaboard, and as you can see, has been heading further and further West.

Experts tell us, they would not be surprised by any means if that reaches all the way to the West coast over the next few seasons.

Now, as we have mentioned so many times in the past, Leon, of all of the people that are actually bitten by a mosquito infected with West Nile, only 20 percent of them actually develop any symptoms, and one out of 150 folks who are bit will actually develop the more serious symptoms that we have been talking about, encephalitis. So there are people who just have mild symptoms, and there are people who die, we have talked about those people, and there are people who fall in between.

Douglas Easterbrook from Baton Rouge, Louisiana is one such person. Mr. Easterbrook, thank you for joining us.

DOUGLAS EASTERBROOK, WEST NILE VIRUS PATIENT: Thank you, sir.

GUPTA: Tell us a little bit about some of what you were feeling that took you to the hospital originally?

EASTERBROOK: What took me to the hospital originally was I was having fever and chills, but mostly a severe headache, and I did have -- I did have a rash on my body also.

GUPTA: And when you got to the hospital, did the doctors know what they were dealing with? What happened there? EASTERBROOK: Well, initially, I went to my regular physician, and he sent me to the emergency room, and no, sir, I don't think they knew what they were dealing with.

GUPTA: You were one of the first cases in Louisiana, is that right?

EASTERBROOK: I was the third case, and probably the first case in the Baton Rouge area. I do not know where the other two cases were, or but I think they were in other cities in Louisiana.

GUPTA: Mr. Easterbrook, a lot of people don't fully understand what happens in terms of actually being in the hospital. Tell us about some of the things they actually had to do to you to figure out what was going on.

EASTERBROOK: To figure out what was going on, they had to give me an epidural, take a sample of the fluid from the spine, and send it to a sophisticated lab in New Orleans to run tests on, which takes about three days to get those test results back.

GUPTA: Were you surprised when you found out -- when you heard the diagnosis?

EASTERBROOK: I don't really think so. For five days in the hospital, I didn't know anything that was going on. I was completely out of it while they were doing all of this.

GUPTA: Just to be clear, you had encephalitis, which is infection of the brain, and that is a pretty serious problem.

EASTERBROOK: And meningitis also, I had both of them.

GUPTA: Right.

EASTERBROOK: Yes, sir. Very serious.

GUPTA: And you were sort of feeling out of it. Tell me what that was like. What were the symptoms? .

EASTERBROOK: I can tell you what the doctors, the nurses, and my family said the symptoms were. I can't tell you from my point because I do not remember anything from -- I went to one hospital emergency room, and they were not equipped to handle me, and they sent me to another hospital in Baton Rouge, a larger hospital. When I left that first hospital, I left in an ambulance. I won't say unconscious, but I do not remember it, and for the next four and half days, I don't remember anything.

GUPTA: How are you doing now?

EASTERBROOK: I am almost fully recovered. I still have a balance problem. I won't call it vertigo, the doctors does not call it vertigo. They seem to think that my brain swelled so much that it pressed down on the stem of my brain, and it is giving me problems, and all I am doing is just day-by-day. Hopefully it will get better. GUPTA: Scary. Let me just ask you one more thing. Are you getting outside, are you afraid of mosquitoes now? What are you doing to protect yourself?

EASTERBROOK: Well, I am immune now since I have had it. They tell me that I am immune, but my wife and I used to sit out on our swing in the evenings and at night. We noticed last night when it started getting dark outside, we got out of the swing and went back into the house just because we did not want to take any chances.

GUPTA: Right. Mr. Easterbrook, thank you so much for joining us. Hope you continue to recover well.

EASTERBROOK: Thank you, sir.

GUPTA: Leon, there are stories and there are numbers. Mr. Easterbrook is one of them.

HARRIS: Yes, I tell you. He is a brave guy. He had his doctor tell him that his brain swelled up and pressed down on his brain stem and that has caused him problems, and he goes back outside. That is a brave guy, if you ask me.

GUPTA: That's right, and he also mentioned it takes a while to recover, not surprising. It may be some time before he fully recovers as he said.

HARRIS: Boy, this thing is something else. Boy. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much. All right. We will talk later on.

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