ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2019. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons 

AttributionNoncommercial 4.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, 

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 11(1): e382, 2019 

 

ISDS 2019 Conference Abstracts 

Epidemiological Distribution of Reported West Nile cases in 
Houston, Texas, 2014-2017 

Razina Khayat, Alex Nguyen, Sudipa Biswas, Hafeez Rehman, Kirstin Short, Najmus Abdullah 

Informatics, City of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States 

Objective 

To demonstrate an overview of the epidemiological and clinical distribution of reportable West Nile cases in Houston, Texas, from 
2015-2017. 

Introduction 

West Nile virus (WNV) is considered the leading cause of domestically acquired arboviral disease and is spread through mosquitoes. 
In general, the majority of the cases are asymptomatic. One in five people infected will display mild symptoms like fever, he adache, 
body ache, nausea, and vomiting. Only about 1 in 150 people infected will develop serious neurologic complications such as 
encephalitis and meningitis. According to CDC, in 2017, there were 133 confirmed cases including 5 deaths and 14 presumptive 
blood donors reported in the State of Texas. Out of the confirmed cases, there were 85 neuroinvasive and 48 non- neuroinvasive 
disease cases. 

Methods 

Data were extracted from Houston’s Electronic Disease Surveillance System (HEDSS) from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 

2017. A total of 45 confirmed cases are included in this analysis to examine the epidemiologic characteristics of the WNV cases. 

A confirmed case is an illness with onset of acute focal limb weakness and an MRI showing a spinal cord lesion largely restri cted 
to gray matter and spanning one or more spinal segments. 

Results 

Among the confirmed cases, 67% of were males. Age group 60 and above (47%) had the highest proportion of WNV cases. Whites 
(26%) represented the highest number of confirmed cases followed by Hispanics (24%). 

Seventy six percent of the cases were hospitalized. Non-neuroinvasive clinical presentations found among confirmed WNV cases 
were fever (94%), headache (76%) followed by chills and rigors (68%). Among the neuroinvasive presentations, altered mental 

status had the highest proportion (24%), followed by stiff necks (18%), Ataxia (12%), and seizure (9%). 

Conclusions 

WNV is mostly prevalent in White male adults over 60 years of age, with majority of cases have common neuroinvasive symptoms 
like altered mental status, stiff necks, and Ataxia. For non-neuroinvasive cases clinical symptoms were fever, headache, chills and 
rigors. 

WNV infection is a markedly underreported disease as most of the infected people do not seek medical care due to mild or no 
symptoms. Currently there are no specific treatments available. Thus, continued monitoring and surveillance activities are 
warranted for prevention and control of WNV complications as well as decreasing the risk of infection. 

Acknowledgement 

We thank the flollowing agencies for providing data for this study: 

Texas Department of State Health Services. 

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ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2019. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons 

AttributionNoncommercial 4.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, 

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 11(1): e382, 2019 

 

ISDS 2019 Conference Abstracts 

Houston Health Department, Diivision of Disease Prevention and Control. Houston Electronic Disease Surveillance 

System. 

References 

1. CDC. West Nile Virus [Internet]. Atlanta: Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center 

for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), and Division of Vector-Borne Diseases (DVBD); 

Last reviewed: September 19, 2018. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/index.html 

 

http://ojphi.org/