It's that time of year when mosquito population is at its peak in the U.S. and this only means that the risk of West Nile Virus (WNV) infections increases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that as of July 21, about 33 states have reported cases of the infection in humans, mosquitoes, or animals and 23 cases in humans alone, TIME reported.
Alarmingly, the virus has been detected in several New York areas; seven New York State (NYS) counties and three boroughs in NYC have already reported positive for WNV.
Fortunately, no human infections have been reported in NYS as of July 23, as reported by the New York State (NYS) Department of Health.
On the other hand, Texas has reported 221 mosquito pools to be positive for the virus as of July 18. Two birds and a horse were found to be infected with the disease, as reported in examiner.com.
There has already been one case of fever from WNV and two cases of neurologic illness in the state, the news outlet reported.
There's no cure or a preventive vaccine for WNV and the most possible way to tackle this problem is through prevention by predicting its outbreak. That's where researchers come in and make that a possibility.
According to TIME, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), together with the CDC, have published their findings in May, which showed that weather is associated with the incidence of virus infection in the nation.
In the study that appeared in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, researchers looked into the relationship among temperature, precipitation, and increased incidence of the WNV infections in the country from 2004 to 2012.
The study found that weather can affect breeding habits and the population of Culex species, the mosquito species that carry the virus.
The weather can also affect populations of birds that carry the virus, which spread them to mosquitoes.
Currently, there is no model that predicts WNV outbreaks and researchers are only hopeful that CDC would adopt their model.
Predicting outbreaks allows local authorities to work on reducing the mosquito population and notify the public on precautionary measures to avoid mosquito bites.
