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West Nile Death Count Reaches 11
Sat Aug 17, 3:46 PM ET
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.
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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