West_Nile_Virus

West Nile Virus Aside from contracting the virus through mosquito bites, many people became infected with the disease through blood transfusions (Couzin, 2003). There has been little time to create an adequate test for West Nile in blood samples. Most blood banks test for antibodies in the blood, which show that the person has and is responding to West Nile disease (Couzin, 2003). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, however, stated that all transfusion blood that transmitted the disease had actually tested negative for antibodies, probably because the donors had contracted the disease too recently to have formed antibodies yet (Couzin, 2003). In these cases we see that even shielding oneself from mosquito bites doesn’t provide complete protection against West Nile disease. Vaccines also provide little hope as of now. There is ongoing research on how to protect the population, both human and animal, from further spread of the disease, but no confident results. One experiment was conducted in mice, in which they were injected with a virus similar to West Nile, Kunjin (Ferber, 2003). Kunjin is almost genetically identical to West Nile, but causes milder symptoms, and during this experiment scientists actually “tweaked” a gene west, 2003, nile, disease, virus, vaccine, birds, turell, blood, antibodies, one, now, mj, results, kunjin, ferber, couzin, test, scientists, produce, placebo, mosquito, mice, given, et, crows, al, while, vol, through, tested, stated, source, science, since, shielding