Denton County Public Health reported the county's sixth human West Nile virus case of the year on Tuesday, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported, and said the latest patient has the most serious form of the illness.
The patient lives in the city of Denton and was diagnosed with neuroinvasive West Nile, which causes severe illness affecting the central nervous system. Four of this season's six cases in the county have been that form. Another Denton resident was diagnosed in July with the milder, non-neuroinvasive form.
Juan Rodriguez, the department's chief epidemiologist and assistant director, told the newspaper that preventing mosquito-borne illness stays a priority even as temperatures drop, and that people should protect themselves from bites before going outdoors.
How serious it can be
Fewer than 1% of people with West Nile develop the neuroinvasive form, and about one in 10 of those patients die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures cited by the Record-Chronicle. The virus reaches people through mosquitoes that have fed on infected birds. There is no vaccine and no medicine to prevent it, so avoiding bites is the main protection.