By NewsDesk @infectiousdiseasenews
The Hellenic National Public Health Organization (EODY) announced (computer translated) two human West Nile virus (WNV) cases–one each in the cities of Karditsa and Topeiros.
Image/CIA
West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne disease that can cause encephalitis, a brain inflammation. Human WNV disease has been reported in Greece since 2010.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 80 percent of people (about 4 out of 5) who are infected with WNV will not show any symptoms at all.
Up to 20 percent of the people who become infected have symptoms such as fever, headache, and body aches, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes swollen lymph glands or a skin rash on the chest, stomach and back. Symptoms can last for as short as a few days, though even healthy people have become sick for several weeks.
About one in 150 people infected with WNV will develop severe illness. The severe symptoms can include high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. These symptoms may last several weeks, and neurological effects may be permanent.
There is no specific treatment for WNV infection. For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page
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