BOSTON – On Friday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health [DPH] that two more human cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus infection have been confirmed.
The cases include a woman in her 60s from eastern Worcester County and a female under the age of 18 from southwestern Middlesex County.
This brings the total number of human cases of EEE to seven this year in Massachusetts.
As a result of the confirmed cases, the risk level in Framingham, Marlborough, Northborough, and Sudbury has been raised to critical and the risk level in Berlin, Boylston, Hudson, Maynard, Stow, and Wayland has been raised to high.
“Even though temperatures have cooled off, it is not unusual to see human EEE cases confirmed in September,” said Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel, MD, MPH. “This is why we continue to urge the public to take seriously the threat that mosquitos can pose and to take steps to avoid being bitten.”
In total, there are 36 communities now at critical risk, 42 at high risk, and 115 at moderate risk for the EEE virus in Massachusetts.
A map of the state’s current EEE risk levels can be found here.
There have also been nine confirmed cases of EEE this year in animals; eight horses and one goat.
EEE virus has been found in 400 mosquito samples this year, many of them from species of mosquitoes capable of spreading the virus to people.
Lead photo credit: Oregon State University on Visual hunt / CC BY-SA
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