West Nile Virus Overstated for the year 2008
Amanda O’Donnell
January 22, 2009
11:40pm
Just this month the state health departments are realizing that the number of West Nile Virus’ that they had recorded in 2008 were off by at least 35%. There were several states that were sent faulty kits that misdiagnosed the virus. Those states were Minnesota, Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas. The kits were sent between July and September which is the prime season for the West Nile virus which is a disease that is carried through mosquitoes. The disease can cause some flu like symptoms but the most important factor is that the West Nile virus can even cause death.
The problem with this faulty diagnostic could turn into a larger problem once they start to care for the patient. The patients were given the wrong medicine to care for a sickness that they didn’t even have. Some medications can have adverse affects when they are trying to fight an infection that does not even exist in the body. Also those patients were never treated for what the actual sickness was.
Inverness is the company who produced the faulty kits. They have been working on the kits and are scheduled to be releasing faulty free kits sometime in the spring. Although this company is only one of four that make kits to test for the West Nile Virus, so there are many other choices that doctor offices and hospitals have.
Out of the recorded states that had been sent the faulty kits here are the actual number of cases that were West Nile Virus:
Mississippi had 101 reported cases but they actually only had 65
Colorado had a reported 71 cases but there were only 24
Pennsylvania had 19 misdiagnoses
Minnesota had reported 21 cases of West Nile but only had 11
North Dakota and Texas are still calculating the misdiagnosis
This article really shocked me. I mean I understand that mistakes are made and that the health system is not completely perfect but this is a virus that could take the lives of innocent people. You would think that more tests would be done to make sure that all their products are working properly.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-22-westnile_N.htm
2 comments:
Amanda I agree with you. Innocent people could have lost their life to this virus and there were people who were getting treated for something that they didn't even have. I don't understand how you could made a mistake overstated the West Nile virus and then sending kits that didn't treat the virus. You're right mistakes do happen, but this is a huge mistake for their part.
I agree with you all as well. Everyone knows that the health department is not perfect, but this mistake is too big. We don't want innocent people to die from a mistake that other made. We have to be more aware with what is happening with cases like these. We also have to be aware of the people who got the treatment that they didn't even need. What's going to happen to them? Is the treatment they got going to effect them in any way? I guess we will just have to wait and see what's to come of this.
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