WAS THE RISK OF WEST NILE VIRUS SIGNIFICANT IN DAVIDSON COUNTY?
The 2000 Census shows the population of Tennessee as 5,689,283. In all of Tennessee, there was one death from West Nile virus in 2003 (from Shelby County) compared to eight deaths in 2002 (one death in Davidson County). In 2002, Memphis had 71% of Tennessee’s confirmed cases of West Nile virus. Many of these cases were in a small area in downtown Memphis. This is a good example of when the short-term use of insecticide in a localized area would have been appropriate. 87% of the cases were in Western Tennessee. Davidson County had one case and one death. At the time, the Health Department was spraying nuisance mosquitoes for individual property owners on demand and used 8 drums of pesticide. In 2003, Davidson County had no deaths and one confirmed case of West Nile virus. This is an incident rate of .17 per 100, 000 in both 2002 and 2003. Also in 2003, the Health Department stopped spraying “Nuisance Mosquitoes” on demand and began a new policy of mass spraying only for “West Nile Mosqu
