1st Kane County Resident Tests Positive For West Nile Virus: IDPH

KANE COUNTY, IL — The first Kane County resident has tested positive for West Nile virus, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced Thursday.

A total of 12 people from Cook, Macon, Madison, Kane, Will and Woodford counties tested positive for the Culex mosquito-transmitted virus. A person in their 90s who lived in suburban Cook County and had an onset of West Nile virus symptoms in early August was the first person to die from the disease, according to the health department.

So far in 2023, 1,817 batches of mosquitos and 13 birds tested positive from 42 counties, officials said. The first mosquito batch to test positive was reported May 30 in Evanston.

Last year, 44 — of a total of 102 — counties in Illinois reported mosquitoes, birds, humans and/or horses testing positive for the virus.

The best way to prevent the West Nile virus or any other mosquito-borne illness is to reduce the number of mosquitoes around your home and to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites.

You can do this by:

• Avoid being outdoors when mosquitoes are most active, especially between dusk and dawn.
• Use prevention methods whenever mosquitoes are present.
• When outdoors, wear shoes and socks, long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and apply insect repellent that includes DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus according to label instructions. Consult a physician before using repellents on infants.
• Make sure doors and windows have tight-fitting screens. Repair or replace screens that have tears or other openings. Try to keep doors and windows shut, especially at night.
• Change water in birdbaths weekly. Properly maintain wading pools and stock ornamental ponds with fish. Cover rain barrels with a 16-mesh wire screen. In communities where there are organized mosquito control programs, contact your municipal government to report areas of stagnant water in roadside ditches and flooded yards that may produce mosquitoes.