Leflore County has its first confirmed West Nile Virus case of the year.
The Mississippi Department of Health has reported that the infection occurred around the southeastern part of Greenwood.
News of this case came as the Health Department announced Thursday that a Lauderdale County resident infected with West Nile had died, becoming the state's first human death due to the virus this season. No information was available on the Greenwood victim's condition Saturday.
So far this year, there have been 20 confirmed cases in the state and 772 nationwide, resulting in 17 deaths.
Having a confirmed case in the county should give residents warning, says Sally Slavinski, an epidemiologist with the Health Department.
"It's a verification that the virus is circulating in the area, and so we encourage folks to follow through with the Fight the Bite campaign suggestions, which focus on prevention and protection," she said.
Those precautions include using insect repellents that include DEET, staying indoors especially from dusk until dawn and, wearing long-sleeved, long-legged clothing with socks and shoes outdoors when practical.
The city of Greenwood's main prevention effort has been to spray larvacide with two trucks. Following last year, when West Nile showed up in horses, birds and one human in the county, the city increased its mosquito spraying for this summer.
The latest news has put the city on alert, prompting it to change its spraying schedule again.
"We're concentrating all our spraying around a one-mile radius on the center there" where the infection occurred, Mayor Harry Smith said. "We had been spraying five or six nights a week with two trucks."
Smith speculated that the increased mosquito activity he has noticed might be tied to an overall wet summer mixed with a recent spurt of near 100-degree temperatures.
Some residents are taking extra precautions.
Johnny Jennings, a Greenwood city councilman, was fighting the mosquitoes in his yard Friday with a propane fogger. "It does the same thing that a mosquito truck does," he said.
He also has patrolled yards in his neighborhood for containers that might be holding water, prime habitats for mosquito breeding.
"I was walking around my yard and down my street the other day and saw about 30 containers with water in them," he said. "There were about six in my back yard that I didn't know about."
Jennings urges other residents to check their surroundings for the same thing.
