The regional delegate for health and consumption of the Junta de Andalucía in Córdoba, María Jesús Botella, pointed out this Wednesday that the health technicians “are already working with the city council” of Montalban in the measures to be adopted to prevent and avoid, as far as possible, new positive cases of the West Nile virus (WNV), such as that known this Tuesday of a 55-year-old man admitted on October 5 with a clinical picture compatible with the VNO and which has already been discharged due to a favorable evolution.
Ello ha determined, según ha explicado Botella, that, based on the establecido en el Programa de Vigilancia y Control Integral de Vectores de la Fiebre del Nilo Occidental (FNO), established by the Consejería de Salud y Consumo, Montalbán “pasa a estar in the level 1” of risk before WNV, in which the municipalities of “Puente Genil, Lucena and Aguilar” were already included in the province and in which are placed the localities in which there is presence of WNV or risk of suffering from it.
The problem, according to Botella, is that Montalban’s entry at this level “implies a series of shows“, to desarrollar “in coordination between the técnicos de la Consejería de Salud y del Distrito Sanitario y el Ayuntamiento de Montalbán”. City hall”.
This does not prevent, as he pointed out, that “the technicians of the health district are already working” with the Consistory and, “in particular, with a company that the town hall of Montalbán has indicated to us will be in charge” of carrying out “the works of disinsectization” in areas where Culex mosquitoes, which are the ones that transmit NOF disease, may be present.
Therefore, as Bottle pointed out, “all the work is already underway, and the collaboration between the Town Hall” and the Health “is also already channeled”, since the delegate, as soon as she learned this Tuesday the aforementioned case originating in Montalbán, put “in contact with the mayor” of the city, Miguel Ruz (IU), and a collaboration began to deal with the situation.
In this way, the circumscribed area intervened in “a mile radius around the place where the transmission of the virus to the affected person is supposed to be epidemiologically localized, and actions will be taken to rule out the existence of sources of larvae and reduce the adult population of mosquitoes of the culex genus, whereby of which the City Council will have the opinion of the public health officers of Health.
Additionally, there will be a active communication to the population, so that they know the self-protection measures to avoid the bite of these mosquitoes, which circulate from dusk to dawn, such as wearing light clothing that protects the largest surface of free skin, avoiding areas of mosquitoes, especially at the times mentioned, and the use of mosquito repellents.
Even though this year’s mosquito season is coming to an end, warm night temperatures may still favor the proliferation of this type of mosquitoes, so the occurrence of even cases at this time cannot be considered exceptional.
Zoonosis
WNV infection is a zoonosis transmitted by Culex mosquitoes. The disease affects countries in southern, eastern and western Europe. The virus is transmitted between birds by the bite of infected mosquitoes, it is its natural cycle. Humans and other mammals can be infected collaterally, without further transmission on their part.
About 80% of WNV infections in humans are asymptomatic, and FNW is the most common clinical presentation. Elderly and immunocompromised people are at increased risk of developing neuroinvasive West Nile disease (in one percent of symptomatic cases).
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