BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The Louisiana Department of Health says there are now 30 confirmed cases of West Nile virus in Louisiana, up four from Sept. 23.
A news release says 17 cases involve serious infections of the brain or other parts of the nervous system. Another 10 are flu-like West Nile fever, and three were diagnosed by blood tests of people who did not have any symptoms.
The department says nobody has died of the disease this year.
At this time last year, 56 people had been diagnosed, 35 of those illnesses were serious “neuroinvasive” cases, and four people had died.
The department says three of the new cases were diagnosed the first week of October, and the fourth was diagnosed the previous week.
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