Travis County Commssioners Court
July 1, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Added Item A4
Announcement of information regarding west nail virus from the Texas department of health. Good morning.
>> I decided to put this on after receiving -- two and three sets of information from the state of Texas. And I thought it would be just a good idea to share this information with other Travis County residents and give their -- a -- give them a phone number if they can call if they want additional information. Good morning.
>> good morning, judge.
>> good morning.
>> after receiving your e-mail, I decide to call for reenforcements because we knew we had been engaged in efforts to educate the community regarding west nile, we had, in fact, started to make some efforts to use our community centers to do that. So barry [indiscernible] and bob flocky from Austin Travis County health and human services are here to give y'all an update on what we're doing.
>> good morning. Thanks for this opportunity. As stephen said we're here to give you an update on the west nile virus situation in the county as well as our efforts in the health department to educate the population on the things that they can do to protect themselves as well as reduce their risk of west nile virus. West nile virus, as you may know, is a mosquito born virus that has become a fact of life in this country, we expect it to be here for the foreseeable future. Since it first was detected in new york city in 1999, it spread throughout the country, last year west nile virus cast detected in 44 states with over 4,000 human cases of west nile virus in the united states. We have long suspected that west nile virus is present in Travis County. Last year that was confirmed with 12 cases of west nile virus in horses, one case of a bird and one human case. So -- again, this year we reconfirmed it with the detection of west nile virus in a mosquito. So what we suspected for a long time is -- has -- has been confirmed for us. The -- we have mosquitoes here-round in Travis County. They never go away because it never gets cold enough for long enough to completely kill them off. However the months of April through August are -- are our worst as far as mosquitoes go. As long as it's dry and in some ways the dryness is a blessing as far as the mosquitoes go because we don't have a problem. But as soon as it rains, four or five days after it rains and the sun has come out, the puddles settle down, we start getting larva in the puddles, before you know it we have a mosquito. You may recall last year after the heavy July rains, we had a severe mosquito problem. But even at our worst, we don't have nearly the problems they do on the gulf coast with mosquitoes. When dealing with west nile virus prevention is your best bet. To help people remember the ways to prevent the west nile virus, prevent their risk and to protect themselves, the Texas department of health has come up with what it calls the four d's program to remind people. The four d's I will go through them very quickly are dusk to dawn, dress, deet, that's d-e-e-t and drain. Dusk to dawn are the period when mosquitoes are most active. If you don't go outside automatic all during that period of time if you can help it, if you happen to go out, that's the second d dress, wear long-sleeved clothes, long pants. The third d is deet, the active element in effective insect repellents. What you are doing when you buy an insect repellent. People should look for deet on the label, it might be called I have to read this, nn daiethyl [indiscernible] the chemical compound that gives it its staying power. We don't endorse any particular insect repel leapt as long as it has deet in it, deet is the most important thing in it. The four d is drain. Mosquitoes need water to breed. So if you eliminate the sources of water in your yard, in your neighborhood, then you eliminate know of the problem. A female mosquito can lay hundreds of eggs in as little as a table spoon of water. So around your yard get rid of old tires, children's toys, puddles being check your gutters on the house to make sure they don't have low spots where the water collects. If you have a bird bath, rotate the water every couple of days,on't allow the water to stand more than three or four days because you will be able to look in there and see what I call wiggle worms, larva in there. Dusk to dawn, dress, dee test, drain. Part of the -- deet and drain. Part of the public education program is we have distributed the information in the packets that you were given by mr. Toronto through the all 22 branches of the Austin public library, community health centers, the community centers in the city and we are working on the rural community centers distribution. We have an excellent video prepared by the Texas department of health that demonstrates for people these actions that they can take. In fact one of our technicians, melvin briggs stars this that video, we can make it available to channel 17 to duplicate for us or we can distribute copies to the rural community centers so they can play them for their clients.
>> good idea.
>> do you have any questions?
>> yes, could you basically just announce for the viewing public your website and also telephone number if they need follow-up questions s.
>> the website is www.ci.austin.tx.com and then click on the health department and that will be the information. The telephone number to call for more information is 512-972-5692.
>> thank you.
>> and everybody who does business with Travis County, social service agencies, will they be getting this information from us, stephen so that they can be aware of it, too? The Commissioner, everybody who does business with us?
>> [indiscernible]
>> so we agree that this problem is as real in rural settings as urban settings.
>> yes, sir.
>> that doesn't matter as long as there's water accumulating.
>> that's correct, one of the important things to remember about west nile virus, of course it can be dangerous and we are concerned about it. But at the same time you may notice that there's -- there's less publicity about it this year than there has been in the past. We are familiar with it. It was exotic, it was new and it could kill people. The majority of people who have west nile virus won't have any symptoms, they won't even know they've had it. The only way to detect it would be to take a blood test and they would see the antibiotics that were created to fight the virus. And we believe that once you have it you are immune to it. That's kind of where we are going. Kind of like the old age when everybody got mumps, once you got mumps you wouldn't get them anymore. The majority of people who get west nile virus won't have any symptoms, they won't know they've had it. A few will have flu-like symptoms, fever, maybe headaches, a stiff next, things like that. And for a few those symptoms will be severe enough to require hospitalization and then again some may die from it. But the particularly at risk people are the same groups who are at risks for a lot of other things such as flu, elderly, people who have compromised immune systems, those who may have some other problems such as asthma or something that weakens their system already. If you are in generally good health, you probably won't have the problems with west nile virus.
>> okay. Well, thank you for coming down to visit us then. It's seasonal I take it.
>> yes. We are in the peak season right now. As I said April through August generally.
>> okay.
>> like hurricane season. [laughter]
>> yes, it is.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 1, 2003 5:52 AM