Boston child tested for West Nile virus

BOSTON (Reuters) -- A Boston child was being tested in a hospital on Thursday for the West Nile virus, hospital officials said, one day after state health officials revealed they had discovered first signs of the virus in Massachusetts.

An unidentified 12-year-old child from Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, where a dead crow infected with West Nile was found last Saturday, was tested for the virus after being admitted to Children's Hospital on Wednesday, spokeswoman Bess Andrews said on Thursday.

She said early indications suggested he was suffering from encephalitis, but that it was not clear whether the virus had caused it. Encephalitis is one of several conditions that can be caused by the West Nile virus.

State health officials were also testing mosquitoes from Massachusetts to see if they were carrying the virus. Those test results were expected later on Thursday.

West Nile virus killed 7 people and made 62 others sick in New York in 1999.

"There is currently a patient in serious condition from the area being evaluated for symptoms that could relate to a number of different illnesses, including encephalitis," a hospital statement said.

"Until the tests are complete and the results are in, infectious disease specialists at Children's (Hospital) caution against assuming there is any connection between this patient and the West Nile virus."

The hospital has not yet released the test results.

The discovery of the dead crow last Saturday was the first time the virus had been found in Massachusetts and Boston is the northernmost point the virus has been found. So far this year, the virus has been found in mosquitoes or birds in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

West Nile virus, named for the region in Uganda where it first appeared in 1937, had never been detected in the Western Hemisphere until it affected the New York region.

The virus is spread to humans by mosquitoes that have been infected by the virus after biting a bird carrying it.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Background, West Nile Virus, CDC Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases (DVBID)
Children's Hospital, Boston

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