A 78-year-old New Franklin man died this week and a 47-year-old Akron resident is hospitalized with severe complications from the mosquito-borne West Nile virus.
The New Franklin resident died Tuesday from West Nile virus encephalitis, according to an announcement Wednesday from Summit County Public Health, the county’s health department. The Akron resident remains hospitalized with the condition, which involves inflammation of brain tissue.
The identities of the two patients were not released.
The Summit County fatality is the first confirmed death in Ohio from West Nile virus since 2008, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Summit County has not had a reported human case of West Nile virus since 2002.
Local public health agencies have increased surveillance and mosquito-treatment activities to combat an abundance of the pests after rain and flooding created ample breeding grounds throughout the region.
“They’ve been unusually thick this year,” Summit County Health Commissioner Gene Nixon said. “With the rain, we haven’t been able to catch up.”
Nearly 100 mosquito pools scattered throughout the county have tested positive for the virus, compared to nine last year, said Terry Tuttle, environmental health supervisor for Summit County Public Health.
The department has intensified efforts to kill the larvae and spray for adult mosquitoes in those affected areas, he said.
The area in South Akron where the sickened resident lives already had been identified in late August as having several mosquito pools carrying the West Nile virus, Tuttle said. No mosquito pools in New Franklin have tested positive for the virus.
“They’ve been awful,” Tuttle said of the mosquitoes. “I’ve been supervising the program for 13 years and this is by far the worst. It’s not just bad for West Nile, it was a terrible year for nuisance mosquitoes as well.”
In addition, there have been five mosquito samples with the West Nile virus in Barberton, Norton and Doylestown, said Joseph Harrison, executive director of the Barberton-Norton Mosquito Abatement District.
When that happens, the district supplements the once-a-week night spraying with additional morning sprayings every other day in affected neighborhoods, he said. Staffers also go door to door to search out mosquito-breeding spots and to treat catch basins and ditches that are favored by the West Nile-carrying mosquito.
Public health experts estimate roughly 20 percent of people infected with the virus develop West Nile fever, which typically causes fever, headaches, tiredness and body aches and occasionally causes a skin rash and swollen lymph glands.
About one in 150 people infected with West Nile virus develops a more severe form of disease, such as West Nile encephalitis or meningitis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms of severe disease include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness and paralysis.
People older than 50 and those with compromised immune systems are at the highest risk for getting severely ill when infected with the virus, according to Summit County Public Health.
“You worry about whether people may have, in general, become a little complacent about using mosquito prevention measures because we have been fortunate to not have had any human cases in our county for nine years,” said Dr. Marguerite Erme, Summit County Public Health’s medical director.
People need to continue taking steps to prevent mosquito bites until the first hard frost hits the region, she said.
Beacon Journal staff writer Bob Downing contributed to this story. Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell