Aug 18, 2002 By Steve Ferris 5 min read

Fayette County has been added to the list of those in Pennsylvania in which dead birds or mosquitoes have tested positive for the West Nile virus. A dead blue jay found in a South Union Township resident’s yard two weeks ago was among 18 cases added to the state Department of Health’s list Friday.

The state updates the list daily, and as of Saturday, the virus had been detected in 31 counties across the state.

The bird found in South Union Township was among five that were found in Fayette County over the last two weeks and sent to the health department for testing, said Art Cappella, the county’s chief community development specialist and West Nile virus program coordinator.

“This past week I recovered two blue jays in Washington Township and sent those in for analyzation,” Cappella said.

“I won’t know (the results) until the end of the month. It takes two weeks.”

He said he was “bombarded” with calls from county residents wanting him to look at dead birds, but many were not types known to be susceptible to the virus.

Blue jays, hawks, owls and crows are the only known birds either to fall prey to or carry the virus, Cappella said.

The fact that an infected blue jay was found in South Union Township was unknown to township Supervisor Robert Schiffbauer.

“That’s news to us,” he said Saturday.

He said he wasn’t told about the find and has received no calls about mosquitoes or dead birds.

Cappella said he didn’t know where in South Union Township the blue jay was found because he didn’t recover it.

He did recover the two birds from Washington Township. They were found close together – one on Everett Street, the other on Monessen Avenue.

Anybody who finds a dead blue jay, crow, owl or hawk should put it in a plastic bag, place that into a box with some ice and take it to the state health department office in the Fayette County Health Center, 100 New Salem Road.

Birds should be delivered as soon as they are found because they become infested with maggots within 24 hours, Cappella said.

Residents can call the health department at 724-439-7400.

Cappella said it is difficult to find the time to return the number of calls he has received over the last few weeks, because he also checks and maintains 20 mosquito traps that are dispersed throughout the county.

He said he sends two or three deliveries of adult mosquitoes per week to the state for testing.

If the virus would be detected in a batch of mosquitoes, the state would hire a contractor to spray insecticides in the area where they were trapped. So far, no spraying has been performed in the county.

Although the bugs fly around, the insecticide would kill the larvae they left behind to hatch, he said.

Stagnant water is ideal for mosquito breeding. Retail products like “Mosquito Dunks” can be dropped into large amounts of stagnant water, like in backed up storm drains, to kill larvae.

Cappella, who has been the county’s West Nile program coordinator for three years, recommends that residents be aware of the virus but not “live in a shell” out of fear of contracting the disease.

“It’s kind of a serious situation. You have these birds carrying it and you have these mosquitoes carrying it. You can’t contract the virus from an infected animal or from another person if they were to become ill,” Cappella said.

The health department says people 50 and older and those with weakened immune systems are at the highest risk, even though anybody can get the virus.

West Nile, which first appeared in 1999 in New York, is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause encephalitis, a brain infection. Last year, the virus was found in 27 states.

Mosquitoes acquire it by feeding on infected birds and pass it on to other birds, animals and people.

It is not spread by person-to-person contact, and there is no evidence that people can catch the disease by handling infected animals, according to a health department Web site dedicated to the virus: www.westnile.state.pa.us/health. The site also can be accessed through a link on the state’s homepage: www.state.pa.us.

Symptoms of people infected by the virus include fever, headache, body aches and skin rash. Sever cases could result in high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, disorientation, convulsions and paralysis.

Cappella recalls that a truck driver from the South Connellsville area contracted the disease last September when he was bitten by a mosquito in Philadelphia. He became ill but recovered, Cappella said.

While no human cases of the virus have been reported in Fayette County this year, the virus has been found in every state east of the Rocky Mountains, with human cases confirmed in nine states and the District of Columbia.

As of Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control listed 251 human cases in the country this year. The virus has killed 11 people nationwide this year, including two more Friday, one in Illinois and another in Louisiana.