Skeeter Alert

As we head into prime time for West Nile, disease trackers are nervously watching the numbers grow

Is this the year West Nile strikes with a vengeance? Back in the spring, public-health officials were divided over how bad this summer's outbreak would be. Last year the mosquito-borne disease resulted in more than 4,000 cases and nearly 300 deaths, and heavy spring rains led some local experts to predict a mosquito baby boom and an explosion of cases in 2003. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was more cautious. The outbreak was likely to be as bad as last year's, said the CDC, but because diseases like West Nile spread so unpredictably, nobody could say for...

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