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American Morning

Five Dead in Louisiana from West Nile Virus

Aired August 07, 2002 - 08:02   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's begin with the West Nile Virus. It is spreading in Louisiana. Five people have died. More than 70 people have been infected there so far this year. And officials say things could get even worse.
Our Ed Lavandera is in Baton Rouge this morning -- Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

What we decided to show you this morning is, we've heard so much talk about how quickly this virus has spread, we're in a neighborhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the southern edge of town. And in this neighborhood around here is where the fourth victim died of West Nile Virus.

And what a lot of people and the health officials here in this state have been urging people to be very cautious of where there might be standing water and that sort of thing. But just to give you an idea of how difficult that is, if you look, you know, it's been raining here the last couple of days since the tropical storm washed up on shore. So there's puddles of water over here.

We're at a school that's being renovated and there's a lot of construction work going on here. And if you take a walk or take a look around here, you can see that -- just bring you back over to this little drainage ditch over here. Take a look down here and there's a bunch of water. I'll throw a couple pebbles so we don't -- prove to you that there's water down there. You can kind of get an idea of this is exactly the kind of things that health inspectors and crews are spraying for mosquitoes, are looking for, because there is so much standing water everywhere you look in Louisiana, that that's a perfect breeding ground for mosquito larvae.

I'll also give you an idea of how quickly things can spread. There -- we can show you a map of just how widespread the West Nile Virus has become in the United States, basically blanketing the entire eastern part of the country.

And there are also reports -- we'll show you on that map -- that Washington State is highlighted because there are now reports that a man who was visiting Louisiana, a man in his 30s who left Louisiana, went to Washington State and that he's been diagnosed with having the West Nile Virus. But we do urge you -- not to cause any panic here at all -- but the West Nile Virus can't be spread between humans. So this is a, you have to be bitten by a mosquito to contract this disease, and that's what people here are urging, that just to be cautious, to make sure if you're in your backyard watch out for standing water so that you can empty that and it doesn't provide that breeding ground for mosquitoes.

But having said all this, health officials here in Louisiana say this problem is only expected to get worse throughout the coming months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do expect this to continue to spread. We don't think that it's over with yet. As long as the warm weather lasts here in Louisiana, I think we're going to be faced with this problem and we're going to see an increasing number of cases, and unfortunately probably some additional deaths, as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So there are a couple, still a couple months left, about two or three months left of the worst part of mosquito season here in Louisiana. So although even though people here like to joke around that the mosquito is the state bird, this is something that has been taking on a more serious problem and it's expected to last several more months -- Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Ed, did you and the crew put on your bug spray before you headed out there this morning?

LAVANDERA: Actually, yes, we absolutely did. In fact, we passed it along here at a little meeting before we did this live shot. So that's the other thing that people here, health officials are warning people. This is the best defense you have, is the bug spray. So we've come fully loaded.

KAGAN: Very good. Just checking on you guys.

Ed Lavandera in Louisiana, thank you so much.

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