To the Editor: West Nile virus (WNV) circulates mainly in birds and ornithophilic mosquitoes. Humans and horses are considered incidental, dead-end hosts (1). Fever, rash, arthralgia, and myalgia develop in ≈20% of cases in humans; severe neurologic disease may develop in <1% (1). In horses, 20% of infections result in clinical disease, of which ≈90% involve neurologic disease with ataxia, weakness, recumbency, muscle fasciculation, and high death rates (30%) (2).
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Venter et al. (2010) studied this question.
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