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Ed Yeates ReportingThere’s some advice to all of us tonight from a Utah victim of West Nile Virus. The State Health Department says mosquitoes in Utah are now testing positive for the virus. As of yesterday two people have come down with serious symptoms of the illness.
One of our native mosquitoes which bites from dusk to dawn is testing positive now for the West Nile virus and more will do the same over the next critical six week period. While most people won't get very sick if bitten by an infected mosquito, others will.
One of those victims is 48-year old Cirildo Garcia in Tremonton in northern Utah. He was a pretty sick man, in the hospital with meningitis - now he's back home on the mend. Cid, as his friends call him, was returning to Tremonton from Arizona with his family when the flu like symptoms began. By the time he got to Tremonton…
Cid Garci: "I felt like a ton of bricks just fell on me. My whole body was aching. My head was about to bust, I felt. I got tired easy. My whole body was just aching."
Cid doesn't know for sure whether he was bitten in Arizona or here, but now it doesn't really matter. He ended up in the hospital with Meningitis.
Garcia: “Oh, that was the most painful ordeal.”
Cid never worried much about putting on an insect repellent before when he went outside. But not anymore. Was his sickness worth taking the risk?
Garcia: “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it.”
From now on, in what's left of summer, if his grandkids go outside, they have a repellent with DEET applied on all their visible skin.
Again, those highest at risk for getting sick with West Nile are older people, the very young, and those with compromised immune systems. So be careful.
