West Nile Virus Expands Its Reach Across 4 Eastern States

The West Nile virus has spread to a wider geographical area this year, with infected birds or mosquitoes identified in four Eastern states, federal health officials said Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, said 188 infected birds have been found this year: 128 in New York, 54 in New Jersey, four in Massachusetts and two in Connecticut. Mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus have also been found in New York and Connecticut.

The CDC said the discovery of infected birds in upstate New York and Massachusetts indicated that the risk of human infection exists in a larger geographical area than in 1999, when the virus killed seven people and sickened 62 others in New York.

The virus, named for the region in Uganda where it first appeared in 1937, had never been detected in the Western hemisphere until it sickened dozens of people last year in New York.

Researchers said this year’s first human case of the potentially fatal disease involved a Staten Island man who became infected before New York began spraying for mosquitoes in July.

The 78-year-old man was recovering at home after being hospitalized for a week.