Dr Anthony Fauci has revealed how he feared he’d never recover after being hospitalized with the mosquito-borne West Nile virus.
The former White House doctor, 83, was experiencing weakness and fatigue that he blamed on a recent bout of Covid, but he quickly became delirious and incoherent with a fever of 103 degrees.
He was admitted to the hospital where doctors could not determine what was causing Dr Fauci’s symptoms, and while he doesn’t remember much, he does recall he ‘had never felt so ill in my life.’
It was only after he returned home that blood tests revealed Dr Fauci had been infected with West Nile virus, a potentially fatal mosquito-borne illness.
There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the virus, but 80 percent of cases are mild and sufferers may experience flu-like symptoms or rashes, but in more severe cases, patients may experience West Nile neuroinvasive disease, which can be deadly.
Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contracted the West Nile virus but is expected to fully recover
The above shows where West Nile virus has been detected in the United States
Dr Fauci detailed his ‘harrowing’ experience of contracting West Nile virus in August 2024 in an opinion piece in The New York Times.
Dr Fauci wrote: ‘There is no treatment for West Nile virus disease, and I was left to deal with its toll on my body. It was terrifying. I could not swing my legs over the side of the bed to sit up without help from my wife and three daughters.
‘I could not stand up without assistance and certainly could not walk. A very scary part of the ordeal was the effect on my cognition. I was disoriented, unable to remember certain words, asking questions of my family that I should have known the answers to.
‘I was afraid that I would never recover and return to normal.’
The former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases had contracted Covid a month prior and blamed his West Nile virus symptoms on rebound Covid symptoms, but his extreme fatigue and exhaustion, coupled with a dangerously high fever landed him in the hospital.
Doctors thought Dr Fauci had sepsis, a life-threatening over reaction of the immune system to an infection, and began treating him with antibiotics. Five days later his fever subsided and he went home.
The next day, his blood results came back and were positive for West Nile virus.
Since 1999, about 60,000 cases of West Nile Virus have been reported in the US
In 2024, West Nile has been detected in humans in 46 states
As of Oct. 1, there have been 880 reported cases of West Nile virus in 46 states, with 65 of those progressing to the more severe West Nile neuroinvasive disease.
This life-threatening condition is rare – affecting less than one percent of West Nile patients – but can lead to high fever, disorientation, headache, stiffness, tremors, convulsions, paralysis, tremors, brain swelling and coma.
West Nile virus, which Dr Fauci called an ’emerging public health threat,’ is the most common mosquito-borne disease in the US and has led to nearly 3,000 deaths since first detected in the US in 1999.
Dr Fauci wrote his recovery was a slow process. When he returned home, he was bedridden, disoriented and unable to sit up.
Several weeks later, he was able to walk with a walker. A few weeks after that he could walk alone and now he can walk several miles a day without experiencing exhaustion.
He added that his cognitive difficulties have completely resolved and he is on his way to a total recovery.
Dr Fauci wrote for the Times: ‘I tell my story because West Nile virus is a disease that, for many people, can have devastating and permanent consequences. At my age of 83, I was at risk of permanent neurological impairment and even death. Yet the public may be unaware of the danger of this disease and that it continues to spread across the United States.’
The virus was first detected in the US in the New York City area in 1999 and was likely introduced from the Middle East or Africa. Mosquitoes get the virus from infected birds and pass it on to humans through a bite.
And experts say warming temperatures due to climate change will only increase the incidence of West Nile in the US because mosquitoes are attracted to warm, humid climates and standing water.
The above shows where West Nile virus patients have developed the more severe West Nile virus neuroinvasive disease between 1999 and 2023
Despite this, Dr Fauci said West Nile virus does not get the funding and research it needs in order to find a vaccine or treatment because governments, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies do not want to spend money developing a vaccine or treatment because cases vary so widely year-to-year.
He wrote: ‘Such fluctuations make it almost impossible to have a consistent-enough number of cases to show that a vaccine was effective at preventing infection. The same frustration applies to the development of antiviral drugs.
‘Because the patient numbers are so inconsistent, pharmaceutical companies lack the financial incentive to make major investments in drug and vaccine development for West Nile.’
To solve this issue, Dr Fauci said efforts for a vaccine and antiviral drugs must be a global collaboration between both public and private entities, such as were the efforts for HIV, hepatitis and Covid.
He wrote: ‘With international research partnerships and political will spurred by an engaged activist community such as we have seen with HIV and now long Covid, West Nile virus treatments and prevention tools should be within our grasp.’
