By By Connie Nowlin Managing editor
Two more crows, found Wednesday inside the city limits of Atmore, have tested positive for West Nile virus. A third crow, discovered Thursday on Foshee Road in Brewton, also tested positive. This brings Escambia County's total to eight crows, one blue jay and one horse known to have had the virus.
Additionally, there have been three horses and two humans known to have died from Eastern equine encephalitis.
One of the people was from Castleberry, in Conecuh County.
The virus may be transmitted to birds, humans and other mammals by mosquito bites, but a bite does not always cause illness.
According to the Web site for the state health department, the majority of people who are bitten by an infected mosquito will feel nothing more than the bite itself, even if they become infected. Others may experience fever, headache and body aches, sometimes with skin rash and swollen lymph glands. Severe infections are marked by a variety of symptoms, including high fever, neck stiffness, disorientation and/or stupor, coma, tremors and convulsions, paralysis and rarely, death.
There are ways in which to stop larvae from becoming adult mosquitoes.
Residents may go by the county offices or satellite offices and pick up sustained release mosquito growth regulator briquettes.
The briquettes are designed to release their ingredients over a 30-day period and keep larvae from becoming mosquitoes.
The brick is placed in ditches or other small areas of shallow, slow-flowing or non-flowing water. One briquette will treat about 100 square feet.
The satellite office in Atmore gives each family two bricks. One briquette will treat about 100 square feet. That amount should be enough for the worst of mosquito season.
Ricky Elliot, an environmentalist for Escambia County Health Department, said the virus was expected to peak during the last two weeks of August and the first weeks of September. Brewton was ahead of the curve on the virus, but Atmore is right on schedule.