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Posted by: Dr. Lois Levitan
Posted to: WESTNILEVIRUS-L@CORNELL.EDU

Subj: WNV: Don't Worry About Dogs
Date: June 29, 2000

This is a "damage control" memo.

Last week (June 22, 2000) a Suffolk County newspaper reported that a dog infected with West Nile Virus
had died. It did not say that the dog had died from West Nile Virus. Further testing was to be done. 
The testing has been done and the word from the NYS Department of Health is that West Nile Virus is 
not implicated in the dog's death. (I do not know full details, such as whether the dog was infected 
but died from other causes.) 

Last year, 5-11% of dogs in NYC and Nassau County tested West Nile Virus-positive (depending on 
location), but none of the dogs showed clinical symptoms of the disease. Infected dogs are "dead end 
carriers" --they would not have sufficient levels of virus in their blood to transmit the virus back 
to mosquitoes. So the message continues to be that pet owners should not worry.

For more information about effects of West Nile Virus on animals, see the May 19, 2000 letter to New 
York State veterinarians from Millicent Eidson, MA, DVM (State Public Health Veterinarian and Director,
Zoonoses Program, New York State Department of Health) and John Huntley, DVM, MPH (State Veterinarian
and Director, Division of Animal Industry, New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets), 
posted on the NYS DOH website: http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/westnile/vetltr.htm. 

A rumor was apparently also circulating that a horse was showing "West Nile-like symptoms." This too
was a false alarm. As of today (June 28, 2000), word from the NYS Department of Health is that the 
virus has not been detected in any mosquitoes and has just been detected in the 4 birds previously
reported from Rockland County, NY and the one crow in Bergen County, New Jersey.

However, mosquitoes are flying (both Culex pipiens and Aedes japonicus), so the campaign to eliminate 
breeding sites for future generations of mosquitoes should be in full gear, and people should try to
reduce their exposure to mosquitoes and mosquito bites. 

LCL