Mark Souder: “Mr. Speaker, last year, northeast Indiana had one of the highest rates of West Nile virus in the country, a total of 157…”

“Mr. Speaker, last year, northeast Indiana had one of the highest rates of West Nile virus in the country, a total of 157 probable cases. Not being swampland or having the traditional problems of the South and Southeast, we were taken by surprise. A large percentage of these cases were reported in my hometown of Fort Wayne and in Allen County around it. In fact, I believe nearly two-thirds of the cases in all of the State of Indiana were in my Congressional district. Not only did we have animal deaths, not only is our bird population drastically reduced, but we have human deaths. We had multiple human deaths caused by the West Nile virus in my district. In fact, Mr. Speaker, one of the counties outside of Chicago as well as my home county represented the bulk of the cases in the entire Midwest and should be the focus on any future studies in the Great Lakes because they were also the two highest counties with the St. Louis virus a number of years ago. The encephalitis virus seems to have replicated itself a number of years later in the same counties. The concern that we have in my home county, because of the human deaths, is that it is impossible to communicate to the rest of the public. As we saw a number of people in the hospitals, very ill, including a reporter and a cameraman who were covering the case and were in miserable condition for a number of weeks, fear spread throughout my district.”