DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — It can start with a pool of rancid, stagnant water, but it’s part of a multi-layered process aimed at keeping people healthy.
“What’s at stake is protecting the public,” Natasha Agramonte, with DeKalb Public Health, said.
Throughout the summer and early fall, public health workers lay out dozens of mosquito traps throughout the county. They use water as bait to catch bugs, then bring them back to a lab just outside Decatur’s city limits.
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“Only certain species of mosquitoes transmit certain viruses,” Agramonte said.
The mosquitoes that are caught are examined under the microscope as scientists look for the specific brown mosquito species that can carry the disease. Once identified, the samples are packed on ice and sent to a lab in Athens to test for the virus.
“You can’t find an enemy that you don’t know where it is,” Agramonte said.
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The virus can be deadly. It first made its way stateside around the turn of the century.
Most people who get the disease will never know it; others will get mild flu-like symptoms. However, for the most serious cases, it can lead to hospitalization and even death.
“That’s still important because that’s someone’s loved one. That’s still someone’s family member. And so we want to be able to prevent that if at all possible,” Agramonte said.
It’s something Bill Cross knows too well. He got the virus more than a decade ago, and remembers getting headaches and feeling sick at home with his family.
“They came up (stairs), and I was collapsed in the bathroom, and they called 911,” Cross said.
A single bite led to a 10-day stay in the ICU, and weeks of recovery as the virus attacked his brain.
“I was asleep at home, and I think your body’s just shutting down,” Cross said.
“There is no cure for West Nile. It’s only supportive care,” Agramonte said.
So if a mosquito pool is found to have West Nile, public officials return to the scene, warn neighbors and target mosquito breeding grounds.
“We start larviciding that area immediately to try and knock down that local population,” she said.
“This is the tool that we have for prevention of this disease that we have here. And so we want to make sure that we are protecting the public as much as possible.”
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