Fort Worth officials will begin spraying insecticide to attack mosquitoes for the first time since the 1990s as the city steps up efforts to deal with the spread of the West Nile virus.
The move comes as officials in Dallas County complete preparations to begin aerial spraying as early as Thursday. But Tarrant County public health officials said they have no plans to conduct aerial spraying here. They continue to urge residents to use insect repellent.As of Tuesday, 171 people in Tarrant County have been infected by West Nile and two people have died. In Dallas County, 10 people have died from the virus and 190 people have been sickened.Fort Worth has not engaged in any targeted ground-level spraying this year, which has been characterized by some as the worst West Nile outbreak since the disease migrated to the United States in 1999, according to Brandon Bennett, Fort Worth code compliance director.The city decided to spray for mosquitoes in certain neighborhoods due to the growing number of cases in a growing number of locations, Bennett said."Even if we drained all the breeding areas there would still be adult mosquitoes flying around carrying the virus," Bennett said. "We're finding multiple cases near susceptible populations. And school will be starting in a couple of weeks and we wanted to be sensitive to that also."There are two forms of illness caused by the West Nile virus. The milder West Nile fever causes flu-like symptoms such as headache, tiredness and body aches with possible skin rashes or swollen lymph nodes.The more serious illnesses are neuro-invasive infections including meningitis and encephalitis. Those symptoms include disorientation, stupor, tremors, convulsions and muscle weakness. Young children, elderly people and people with compromised immune systems are most vulnerable.Lou Brewer, Tarrant County public health director, said both West Nile deaths in Tarrant County have been neuro-invasive and have occurred in people with underlying conditions."Two-thirds of our cases are fever instead of neuro-invasive," Brewer said.A presentation made before Tarrant County commissioners on Tuesday showed that as many as 73 percent of residents infected with the West Nile virus in Tarrant County never used insect repellent while they were outdoors and an additional 16 percent of the population only used insect repellent one-quarter to one-half of the time they were outdoors.The figures were culled from epidemiological surveys of people in Tarrant County infected with the virus, according to a Tarrant County public health official.About 11 percent of those infected used insect repellent when they were outdoors three-quarters of the time or always, the documents showed. Those who became sickened by the West Nile virus were most often gardening or engaging in recreational water activities, such as fishing, boating or attending a pool party, according to officials with Tarrant County public health.Almost half of those infected by the West Nile virus in Tarrant County were outdoors for two hours or less, while 27 percent of those infected were outdoors between two and four hours, 16 percent were outdoors between five and eight hours and 12 percent of those infected were outdoors eight hours or more.Mitch Mitchell, 817-390-7752Twitter: @mitchmitchel3
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