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CDC Director Discusses West Nile Virus, Anthrax

Aired August 22, 2002 - 14:46   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now on the set to talk about the West Nile virus, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based right here in Atlanta.
We very much appreciate you coming down to us.

JULIE GERBERDING, DIRECTOR, CDC: Thank you.

COOPER: Let's talk about West Nile. We have heard a lot about it on the news, especially on 24 hour news networks. Let's get a reality check. How big a danger is this?

GERBERDING: Well, I think we are taking this seriously. We know the virus is spreading across the Southern and parts of the Western United States. There is a lot of virus in birds. There are a lot of mosquitoes carrying this disease. And in some people, it causes a very serious illness. So it is a serious problem. It's expanding, and we've got to be out in front of it.

COOPER: Do you anticipate it reaching the West Coast? It seems like it's certainly spreading that way?

GERBERDING: We don't want to speculate about where it is going next. So we are monitoring birds, because dead birds do seem to predict where it is headed. And certainly, the West Coast states are now looking at birds and bird populations to see whether it has arrived there yet. We won't be surprised, but we don't have any evidence that it has gotten there so far.

COOPER: On Tuesday, the FDA they were going to be looking at interferon as a possible treatment for this. How exciting is that? Is that a major breakthrough?

GERBERDING: Well, we want to be sure we haven't overlooked any opportunities for treatment. Interferon works by kind of interfering with the virus movement from one cell to another. It has some laboratory evidence of treatment benefit, but we don't have any direct evidence that it's going to work for this problem. It is worth a try, but it is too soon to tell.

COOPER: Just in terms of informing people how to avoid the West Nile virus, what is the best way?

GERBERDING: What they say in Louisiana is fight the bite. I think that is basically the message. You need to use insect repellent to keep mosquitoes from biting; drain water on your property to ensure that you don't have mosquitoes breeding there; and when possible, especially in the late evenings or if you are going into the areas where there are a lot of mosquitoes, cover your skin with clothing.

COOPER: Why is it so difficult to identify this virus? I mean, a lot of the cases that we are just hearing about now -- just today we heard about several new cases -- were really people who were sick weeks ago and it has just been identified that is what they were sick with. Why that lag time?

GERBERDING: There are a couple of things. One is that the illness itself is not really specific. Lots of things create a similar pattern of disease.

The second is the testing is not done in commercial laboratories, usually; it is done in the state health department, and it is done under very careful conditions. When specimens are positive in a new jurisdiction, we also take the extra step of making 100 percent sure they are accurate by having them retested in the CDC laboratory in Fort Collins, and the special test does take some time. So we're erring on the side of being absolutely sure. That doesn't stop us from taking the appropriate public health measures, but it affects how the case count adds up.

COOPER: The likelihood of someone getting this is still pretty minuscule.

GERBERDING: That is a very important point. Even though we know it is in many, many mosquitoes and many, many birds, the actual number of people who are getting sick -- and certainly the number of people with the serious brain inflammation component of the disease -- that's a very, very small fraction.

COOPER: Some people who may get bitten by a mosquito that has West Nile don't necessarily come down with it themselves?

GERBERDING: Absolutely. What we saw in the New York outbreak a couple of years ago is that 1 in 150 infected people actually get the serious illness. Even if you are infected, the chances are really good you are not going to be sick -- or at least seriously ill.

COOPER: You came to public attention for many people, I think, battling anthrax. And today, the front page "New York Times" and "The Wall Street Journal" are prominently displayed an article about this article that's in the journal "Nature," I believe. What do you make of it? It basically says that there may be some sort of a breakthrough in both the treatment and the prevention of anthrax?

GERBERDING: Well, right now, antibiotics are still the way we treat anthrax infection. But this new discovery in the laboratory is fascinating, and it certainly opens up a whole new avenue of investigation that might lead to some alternatives to antibiotics for treating infection. It is a long way off, but it is exciting to even think about the possibility.

COOPER: But it is a long way off?

GERBERDING: It is a long way off.

COOPER: All right. Dr. Gerberding, thanks very much for being with us.

GERBERDING: Thank you.

COOPER: And we very much appreciate it.

GERBERDING: Glad to be here.

COOPER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Good luck to you.

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