Dr. Deborah Asnis, the New York infectious disease expert who helped scientists uncover the first West Nile virus cases in the western hemisphere, passed away on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 59 years old.
Asnis's son, Joshua, said that the cause of her death was breast cancer.
While working as a disease specialist at the Flushing Hospital Medical Center in August 1999, Asnis came across two patients who were showing similar symptoms that were baffling to the physicians. She contacted Dr. Marcelle Layton, head epidemiologist at the city health department of New York.
In their 2003 book titled The New Killer Diseases: How the Alarming Evolution of Germs Threatens Us All, authors Mark Fischetti and Elinor Levy said that what Asnis did was something that could have been very difficult for other doctors to do.
Fischetti and Levy pointed out that one of the major issues of disease detection in the country is that many physicians prefer not to report cases of patients with strange symptoms. This is because these doctors are either unsure of what the disease they are facing is, unaware of the requirements for disease reporting or simply do not have the time to accomplish it.
The authors said that Asnis showed how highly conscientious she was.
The two patients Asnis encountered were both male and between 60 and 75 years old. They displayed similar symptoms, including high fever, disorientation and the loss of control in their arms and legs. Their spinal fluid also had excess amounts of white blood cells.
Initial testing of the patients suggested that they are suffering from meningitis, viral encephalitis, botulism or Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Layton advised Asnis to send samples of the patients' blood and spinal fluid to the laboratory of the New York State Health Department for additional testing.
Around four days after the first two cases, two more patients with similar symptoms were reported. In two days, the Flushing Hospital Medical Center and several other hospitals in Queens had reported eight cases of the strange disease.
All of the patients with the disease had two shared characteristics: They all lived in an area covering a few square miles of each other, and that they liked to lounge in their backyard or tend their garden during the evening.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was also contacted, and by the following month, the cause of the disease was identified to be St. Louis encephalitis.
Officials from the city government later began applying insecticide in areas suspected of being breeding grounds for insects, which subsequently caused panic regarding the health dangers that the aerial spraying could have on the public.
The diagnosis for the cause was later changed to West Nile virus after further tests were conducted by the CDC. The agency's findings also considered previous reports of suspicious bird deaths in the Bronx area.
Health officials in New York recognized Asnis's vigilance and quick response with helping them prevent the spread of the virus to other parts of the city.
Photo: John Tann | Flickr
