The very first case of West Nile has been diagnosed in Illinois for this year.

NBC Chicago shares that a woman from Chicago "became ill in the middle of May, but additional testing didn’t confirm she was sick with West Nile until Tuesday."

Apparently the woman came down ill earlier than the usual time frame for when our area usually see cases of West Nile pop up. The Illinois Department of Public Health ordered the testing to be done by the CDCP to verify if in fact it was West Nile.

Last year the first case was diagnosed on July 20th.

West Nile can cause serious illness. The symptoms include: "fever, nausea, headache and muscle aches, which may last from a few days to a few weeks. Four out of five people infected with the virus won’t show symptoms."

The best way to prevent it from happening to you is to "take precautions like wearing insect repellent and getting rid of stagnant water around your home."

Yuck! Just plain nasty.

To learn more about West Nile visit the IDHP site by clicking here.

 

 

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