Opinion | Anthony Fauci: My West Nile Virus Nightmare

After I spent more than 50 years chasing and fighting viruses, one fought back and nearly took me down. I speak of the West Nile virus, delivered by the deadliest animal on the planet — the mosquito.

I didn’t get infected during any of my international trips over the years, but most likely while I was outside my home in Washington, D.C. In mid-August I was feeling weak and exhausted, but attributed it to a recent bout with Covid-19. Though I had tested positive for Covid over a month prior, I had experienced a rebound of symptoms after taking the treatment Paxlovid. Perhaps I was still experiencing lingering symptoms that would eventually resolve.

Not so. Instead, I began to experience unexplained, severe fatigue and exhaustion culminating in my admission to a hospital on Aug. 16, delirious and incoherent with a temperature of 103 degrees. I remember little of the five and a half days that I spent in the hospital except that I had never felt so ill in my life. My physicians assumed that I had sepsis and treated me with antibiotics. After several days, my fever subsided, and I was discharged on antibiotics without a clear diagnosis. That changed the next day when blood tests revealed that I had West Nile virus.

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.

Fortunately, over a period of a few weeks slow improvement began. I was able to walk with a walker and then without any assistance. Now I can walk a few miles per day with only minimal fatigue, and my cognitive issues have completely resolved. I am on my way to a total recovery, but it has been a harrowing experience.

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 is continues to spread across the United States; it has been identified in 46 states this year. Unfortunately, very little is being done about it from scientific and public awareness perspectives.