Symptoms
It takes 5 to 15 days after the bite of an infected mosquito to develop symptoms of LACV disease.
Symptoms include nausea, headache, vomiting in milder cases and seizures, coma, paralysis and permanent brain damage in severe cases.
LAC encephalitis initially presents as a nonspecific summertime illness with fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and lethargy. Severe disease occurs most commonly in children under the age of 16 and is characterized by seizures, coma, paralysis, and a variety of neurological sequelae after recovery. Death from LAC encephalitis occurs in less than 1% of clinical cases. In many clinical settings, pediatric cases presenting with CNS involvement are routinely screened for herpes or enteroviral etiologies. Since there is no specific treatment for LAC encephalitis, physicians often do not request the tests required to specifically identify LAC virus, and the cases are reported as aseptic meningitis or viral encephalitis of unknown etiology.
Like with many infections, the very young, the very old and the immunocompromised are at a higher risk of developing severe symptoms.
Read more about this topic: La Crosse Encephalitis
Famous quotes containing the word symptoms:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Murderous desire, hatred, distrust are nowadays the accompanying signs of physical illness: so thoroughly have we embodied our moral prejudices.—Perhaps cowardice and pity appear as symptoms of illness in savage ages. Perhaps even virtues might be symptoms.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)