By BRANDON LOOMIS, Associated Press Writer

An Illinois man who died of West Nile virus ( news - web sites) — one of 11 nationwide to succumb to the illness this year — was in poor health that would have worsened the effects of the virus, public health officials said.

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Sam Basalone, 67, had emphysema and recurring heart troubles, and he had suffered kidney failure in 1996 that required a transplant followed by dialysis, his wife, Shirley Basalone, told The Associated Press.

He also couldn't stand air conditioning, so the retired used car salesman slept on a patio bed at his home in the Chicago suburb of Westmont, which left him exposed to the mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus, she said.

"I thought he was coming back," Shirley Basalone said of her husband after he was first admitted to the hospital. But by the end of the last week of his life, he was in a daze, she said.

Dr. John Lumpkin, director of the state Department of Public Health ( news - web sites), announced Friday that a 67-year-old Illinois man had been stricken with the encephalitis form of the illness, or inflammation of the brain, had slipped into a coma and had died Aug. 10.

Basalone was the first infected person in Illinois to succumb to the virus. Two other deaths this year from West Nile virus occurred in Mississippi and eight were in Louisiana.

"The results are very serious, but we want to remind people that this is still a very rare disease among people bitten by mosquitoes," Lumpkin said. He said the Illinois victim's chronic conditions would have worsened the West Nile effects.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites) expert, Dr. Lyle Petersen, said the disease's peak this year may not come for several weeks and could infect hundreds more people.

So far, the virus has been found in every state east of the Rocky Mountains, with human cases confirmed in nine states and the District of Columbia. As of Saturday, the CDC listed 251 human cases in the country this year.

West Nile first appeared in the United States in 1999, when seven people infected with the virus in New York died.

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