250 Health Workers Battling Queens Encephalitis Outbreak

Applying insect repellent as he faced a full-dress news conference on 11th Ave. and 137 St. in College Point last week, Mayor Rudy Giuliani stood in front of a shoddy lot swarming with mosquitoes last week to warns northern Queens residents of an outbreak of encephalitis, a serious viral disease.
As reporters swatted away a squadron of the insects, Giuliani told them that an 80-year-old man from northern Queens had succumbed to the disease that causes inflammation of the brain. Late in the day another Queens death was epoted from the disease.
Guiliani, joined by Borough President Claire Shulman, Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn and Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, assured the crowd of reporters that there was no cause for panic.
He produced a can of insect repellent and proceeded to demonstrate for the television cameras how to apply the spray. The nattily-attired Giuliani also recommended that northern Queens residents wear long sleeves and keep their legs covered until the bug infestation had been wiped out.
The intensive spraying campaign was launched over last weekend and included 250 health workers including a helicopter spray attack on the mosquitoes.
Health officials speculated that the mosquitoes were infected by migratory birds. In addition to the lone fatality there were reportedly two dozen others from Queens sickened by the virus.
One College Point resident, Carol Ricatto expressed relief that the Mayor and health officials were on hand to assure them that an intensive spraying campaign was underway to destroy the mosquitoes that carry the deadly disease.
"There had been rumors of a death from a man bitten by a mosquito," she said. "We’ve seen a lot of dumping going on in the lot on 11th Ave. and that’s probably where the insects breed."
City health officials called the condition, St. Louis encephalitis the most common form of the disease in the U.S. They said the disease which can be deadly as quite rare.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that only nine recorded cases of the disease had been reported in 33 years in New York State.
Symptoms can be flu like and range from headache and fever to seizures, confusion and paralysis and, sometimes, death.