1 week Ago
Pearse FitzPatrick, 68, had been sick for a few days with fever and nausea. But when he got up in the middle of the night, it really hit him. "I kind of just dropped to the floor and couldn't get up," the James Island man said.
That his ailment would turn out to be an infection from a tiny mosquito was just as baffling. "Never even considered it," FitzPatrick said. He was one of two confirmed West Nile virus cases at Roper Hospital recently in Charleston.
Overall, South Carolina has had nine human cases so far in 2024, which is right around the pace the state saw in 2023, said Dr. Martha Buchanan, interim director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control for the Department of Public Health. "The truth is, it's West Nile season, and the mosquitoes are very active right now," she said.
In addition to the two cases in the Lowcountry, there have been four in the Midlands, two in the Upstate and one in the Pee Dee region, officials reported. The state does not release data by county in order to help protect patient privacy. Charleston has 2 West Nile virus cases as mosquito-borne disease spreads West Nile virus was first identified in Uganda in 1937, but it wasn't until the late '50s and early '60s that it was found to cause serious infections to the central nervous system and brain.
It was first diagnosed in the U.S. in 1999 in patients in New York City, but it quickly spread outward after that.
South Carolina saw its first human case of serious disease in 2002 , and the state has had 145 instances of neuroinvasive infections since then, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many more have undoubtedly been infected and never knew it. Most healthy people — about eight in 10 — never develop symptoms once bitten, Buchanan said.
About one in five others will have a fever and other symptoms like headache, body aches and vomiting but will get better on their own. Pearse FitzPatrick and his wife, Jane, in downtown Charleston last winter. He was one of two recently confirmed West Nile virus cases at Roper Hospital.
That's how it began for FitzPatrick around July 29, as his daughter, Amy, said he had fever and nausea that persisted. But then it became more serious. Around one in 150 cases, particularly among those ages 65 and older, will become neuroinvasive, where the infection spreads to areas of the spinal cord and brain, the CDC noted.
After his fall, FitzPatrick was taken by ambulance to Roper Hospital. There, doctors treated him in the emergency room and, when he appeared to be stabilized, were preparing to discharge him to go home later that morning. But then FitzPatrick apparently developed atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can become serious and potentially lead to a stroke.
He was then admitted to the hospital unit for heart patients. Many times, the virus will infect patients and the body will begin to fight it off. Especially in the elderly, their bodies may have a harder time as the virus invades the central nervous system and the brain.
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Kent Stock, hospital epidemiologist for Roper St. Francis Healthcare. The symptoms themselves can be baffling.
ln July, doctors in Colorado wrote about a case of encephalitis from a West Nile virus infection where the patient's only symptoms at first were fever and double vision that came and went. Rock Hill West Nile virus case one of a handful in South Carolina so far this year As FitzPatrick prepared to be admitted, he asked his daughter to go to his house and get his phone and some other things. Then he seemed to go downhill quickly.
"When I got back to the hospital at 1 p.m., he didn't know who I was," Amy FitzPatrick said.
It would go on from there. Pearse FitzPatrick remembers going to the hospital "and then the next week and a half, I don't really remember anything." It would actually be 22 days that he spent at Roper.
During that time, he would be transferred to the intensive care unit where he was intubated for days to help with his breathing. It all took a toll. "He lost 26 pounds in 22 days," Amy FitzPatrick said.
But still, it wasn't clear what it was, besides a serious infection. West Nile virus isn't on the panel of viruses Roper normally tests for, Stock said. Part of that is it would not make much difference in the treatment.
Even after 22 years, there is no specific treatment for West Nile and no vaccine. Doctors treat the patient's symptoms and provide supportive care to help them get through it. FitzPatrick is now back at home on James Island, and Charleston County is in the midst of a 45-day period of spraying around his neighborhood, which is near the Walmart Supercenter on Folly Road.
The county is spraying every couple of days, said spokeswoman Chloe Field. "We've also been doing the trapping and testing (of mosquitoes), and all of our testing has been negative," she said. Charleston County had already begun spraying frequently before that because mosquito control had noticed it is a busier year than usual because of the rain dumped by Tropical Storm Debby and other recent events, Field said.
'Mosquito explosion:' Clemson warns SC of rare virus threats weeks after Tropical Storm Debby [email protected] FitzPatrick has begun physical therapy to help in his recovery, though he says he is doing pretty well considering the circumstances. "There's a healing process that is going on," he said.
"But I don't need a walker or a chair or anything like that." Mostly he is just tired and run-down after his ordeal. But he feels fortunate, especially after reading that about 10 percent of patients who get these kinds of serious brain infections from West Nile die from them while others face very long recoveries and are left with lasting disabilities.
"So, yeah, I guess I feel ...
I feel lucky at this point," FitzPatrick said..
