There is no specific treatment that would target the virus that causes West Nile fever. This was stated in an interview with UNN by the chief infectious disease specialist of Ukraine, Honored Doctor, Professor Olga Golubovskaya.
"There is no specific prevention, no vaccine for people. Only nonspecific ones, repellents, insecticides should be used, to destroy the breeding grounds of these mosquitoes, to eliminate them. (...) By the way, this is a pathogen that belongs to the third group of biological hazards. This is a very serious group, and the last one, the fourth group, is where the Ebola virus and biological weapons are. By the way, after the outbreaks in the United States, every blood donor is tested to see if he or she is a carrier of the West Nile virus. This is a very dangerous virus. It is more dangerous than covid. Unfortunately, there is no specific treatment, no antiviral therapy has been developed, and there are no hints of antiviral therapy yet," the expert said.
У Києві померли три людини від ускладнень гарячки Західного Нілу - КМДА30.08.24, 12:17
According to Golubovska, the outbreak that is currently being recorded in Ukraine is very serious. In addition, the disease is poorly diagnosed.
"...what good can be said is that a huge number of people are not seriously ill. That is, we simply do not diagnose them at all. A person may simply have a fever and malaise. There are people without catarrhal syndrome, without anything. This is a mild form. There may be conjunctivitis. Respiratory syndrome is very rare. And only one percent develops the most severe form of the disease. We call it the neuroinvasive form. It is very severe in fact. There are several options. And we already have methods, although there are no recommendations for treatment, nothing. But we worked out very quickly. And we have very good treatment results. There are cases when a person enters a brain coma, but we have good results of therapy here as well - the main thing is to start treatment quickly, and not to wait and see what happens, and then only call a specialist consultant. No! You need to start right away. Infections, any infections, should be treated immediately, if there is an etiotropic therapy, if a person is in intensive care, an emergency, you need to treat it immediately and get an answer immediately. If there is no response, the therapy should be changed and we should make sure that there is a response. This is the only thing that helps," explained the infectious disease specialist.
As the specialist explained, the disease used to be specific to Africa, and when it was discovered, they learned that about 47% of the West Nile Valley had antibodies, which is why the disease is called West Nile fever. However, over time, the infection spread to almost all of Europe and became endemic here, i.e., characteristic of the region. There were 20 centers of this disease in Ukraine before the war. In our country, there are mosquitoes that transmit the virus, and the natural reservoirs for the virus are mostly birds. However, birds sometimes die under the influence of this fever, so Golubovska does not rule out that the dead birds that residents of Kyiv region have been seeing recently may be affected by this disease.
"One patient I consulted had several chickens die on her farm. This is already an epidemiological anamnesis," the doctor said.
She added that humans are a dead end for the spread of the virus - that is, if a mosquito bites a sick person and a healthy one after that, they will not get sick. However, the experience of the United States, which, according to the doctor, has experienced "dramatic outbreaks" of the disease, has shown that mosquito control indirectly affects the spread of the infection. The measures taken during the first outbreak in the United States in 1999 were aimed at reducing the mosquito population. The measures were taken even when it was not yet known what kind of infection had affected people.
"In the United States, back in 1999, when we didn't know what was happening and not even everyone believed in the possibility of an epidemic in such a prosperous city as New York, epidemiologists began to study what was happening. And what did they notice? A huge number of mosquitoes, which can be carriers. Then they began to conduct door-to-door visits, asked the owners of private houses to drain water tanks, drained ponds with standing water, and provided everyone with insecticides. Gambusia fish, which eat mosquito larvae, were introduced into the sewage system. In this way, they significantly reduced the population of vectors. And this indirectly reduced the likelihood of getting sick," the doctor explained and reminded that sanitary and epidemiological surveillance was once virtually destroyed in Ukraine.
Read more about the situation with infectious diseases in the interview Infectious disease specialist Olga Golubovska: In Ukraine, there is a prejudice against antiviral drugs - the only salvation for viral diseases.