Deadly Virus Brings New ‘Serious’ Threat to Ukraine

The West Nile virus poses a “serious” threat to Ukraine, one of Kyiv’s top health officials has said, as the spread of the mosquito-borne virus has killed nearly a dozen people in the war-torn country in three months.

“It is serious, it will remain serious,” Ukraine’s Deputy Health Minister and epidemiologist Ihor Kuzin told the BBC’s Ukrainian service in an interview published on Sunday.

The West Nile virus is typically spread by infected mosquitoes, and can produce symptoms such as a fever, aching, vomiting, rashes, diarrhea and headaches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is more common during the summer and fall seasons, when mosquitoes are more prevalent.

Humans are infected with West Nile when mosquitoes bite them after feeding on birds with the virus, the CDC said.

Outbreak hotspots are typically found on bird migratory routes, according to the World Health Organization. “Several flight paths of such birds pass through Ukraine,” Kuzin said.

Around one in 150 people infected with the West Nile develops a serious or fatal illness, according to the public health agency. An estimated 80 percent of people with the virus do not show symptoms.

Ukraine’s Health Ministry-run Public Health Center said the mortality rate sits between 2 and 14 percent.

There is currently no vaccine or specific treatment for West Nile. The virus has been around for almost a century, and was first discovered in Uganda in the 1930s. It is now found in many places across the world.

In late August, prominent U.S. immunologist, best known for leading the U.S. government’s COVID pandemic strategy, Anthony Fauci, was admitted to hospital with the West Nile virus. He then returned home, saying he had likely been infected outside his Washington D.C. home.

“I had never felt so ill in my life,” Fauci said in an essay published in The New York Times earlier this month. “It was terrifying.”

“I am on my way to a total recovery, but it has been a harrowing experience,” Fauci said.

Since the start of July, 11 people in Ukraine have died after contracting West Nile, with a total of 88 cases registered, Kuzin said.

The Public Health Center said in late August that laboratories had confirmed 41 cases of West Nile Fever in Ukraine since the start of the month. A total of 50 cases were recorded since the start of the year, according to the center, including one case in the central Poltava region over the summer.

A total of 17 people were admitted to Kyiv’s St. Michael Clinical Hospital with West Nile virus, and three people died “due to complications” between June 1 and the end of August, according to Valentina Ginzburg, the head of the capital’s health department.

The patients—10 men and seven women—resided in different parts of the capital, with two of those infected living in the greater Kyiv region and the central Cherkasy region, south of the capital, according to the official.

“We probably have to get used to the fact that this fever will be in even greater numbers in Ukraine,” Kuzin said.

Experts say the best way to avoid being infected with the virus is to wear protective clothing, fix netting onto windows and wear mosquito repellent.