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Horse Infected With West Nile Virus In Western Massachusetts

MassDPH

  Massachusetts health officials have raised the West Nile Virus threat level to “high” in one western Massachusetts town.  WAMC”s Paul Tuthill reports.

   State health officials said Wednesday that a horse in the town of Ludlow had tested positive for West Nile Virus, prompting the threat level to be raised.  Officials also announced the first human case of West Nile Virus in Massachusetts this year.  A 60 year old man who lives in a community north of Boston.  The threat level in several Boston suburbs was elevated to moderate.  Health officials urged people to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites.  West  Nile Virus infected mosquitoes have been found in 48 communities in 9 of the states 14 counties so far this year..

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.