CDC: West Nile Outbreak Sickens More Than 4,500
ATLANTA (CBSMiami) – More than 4,000 people have been infected with the West Nile virus this year, making it the biggest outbreak of the disease since 2003, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said that as of Tuesday, a total of 4,531 cases of West Nile in humans had been reported, including 183 deaths attributed to the disease. The CDC said 2,293 cases were designated as neuroinvasive disease (like meningitis or encephalitis) and the rest were non-neuro invasive disease.
While Florida has seen its fair share of cases, primarily in the northwestern panhandle part of the state, the disease has hit Texas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, South Dakota, Michigan, and Oklahoma the hardest. Those states constitute 70 percent of the CDC's reported cases.
Over one-third of all the cases of West Nile have been reported in Texas.
