Wisconsin

From the Article:

Two Wisconsinites have died and a third has been hospitalized because of West Nile virus, according to state health officials.

On Thursday, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported the state’s first three cases of the mosquito-borne illness this year.

West Nile virus is spread through the bite of an infected mosquito and cannot be passed from person to person. The state sees an average of 18 cases annually, with cases usually peaking in August or September.

DHS epidemiologist Rebecca Osborn said on a call with reporters that Wisconsin has seen cases of West Nile virus every year since it was discovered in the state in 2002. She said the location of cases each year is “quite sporadic.”

“It’s an unpredictable disease at times,” Osborn said. “We can have as few as one or two cases in a given year, and we can have as many as 52 cases, I think was our record. So there’s this sort of ebb and flow.”

Osborn told reporters around 80 percent of people who are infected with the virus don’t have symptoms. People who do become ill typically develop a fever and experience symptoms similar to influenza, like headache and body aches.