Broken promise. But for a good reason.

Many months ago I made a commitment to entirely shun any entries regarding West Nile virus or bird flu. I tire of those stories quite quickly, they being the same old crap rehashed and retold, and for what? It's fear-mongering at its finest.

Today, I break that pledge. But it comes with a twist.

Birds have been the tried-and-convicted culprits accused of spreading West Nile across the country ever since the virus was identified in 1999 in New York. Not so fast, says Infection Control Today:

“In the past, people assumed that birds played the primary role in the spread of West Nile. However, the rapid spread of West Nile did not follow a leap-frog pattern or move north to south along migratory bird routes like we would expect,” said senior author Jason L. Rasgon, PhD, assistant professor with Bloomberg School’s Malaria Research Institute and the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. “When you see such rapid movement, one of the main questions we ask is: ‘What are the factors that mediated this jump?’ Our study shows mosquitoes are a likely candidate.”

Aha, it's the mosquitoes after all, not the birds (if their conclusions are valid). Now that is relevant IMO.

Posted by: kcorliss on 3/08/2010 at 3:52 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: birding, birds, mosquitoes, northland outdoors, west nile virus