By By Tony Kukulich and Kayla V. Sheriffe

Copyright postandcourier

Symptoms of neurologic disease include fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, behavioral changes, drowsiness and coma. In infants, neurologic disease often occurs soon after onset. In older children and adults, encephalitis might occur after several days of systemic illness.

“All those are going to suggest that there’s some process going on, an infection or inflammation in your brain or around your spinal cord, that’s going to require urgent care,” Traxler said.

The virus will kill one in three people who develop severe EEE, with the death generally occurring two to 10 days after onset of symptoms.

Those who do recover are often left with long-term physical or mental problems. Problems can range from mild to severe intellectual disability, personality disorders, seizures, paralysis and cranial nerve dysfunction.

People with severe disease and ongoing disabilities often require long-term care and die within a few years.

There are no vaccines to prevent infection and no medications to treat the disease in humans. The severe cases are most likely in patients younger than 15 or older than 50.

EEE is not transmittable from person to person.

The best protection against EEE is to prevent mosquito bites. The American Mosquito Control Association recommends wearing long sleeves and pants and light-colored, loose-fitting clothing when outdoors and properly applying an EPA-registered product containing DEET or other approved repellent.

Wearing permethrin-treated clothing is another option.

Beaufort County is responsible for mosquito control.

County technicians test mosquitoes captured in traps in 78 locations on weekly basis, searching for insects with the EEE virus. The closest trap to where the fatal infection occurred was about 2.5 miles away, and no EEE has been detected in that trap so far this year.