Cases of West Nile Virus in Chicago's Northern Suburbs

The CDC announced that this is the worst year for West Nile Virus since it started tracking in 1999. Check out how your area is faring in our interactive map of diagnosed cases in humans and mosquitoes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this week that reported cases of West Nile Virus are at an all time high. “The 1118 cases reported thus far in 2012 is the highest number of West Nile virus disease cases reported to CDC through the third week in August since West Nile virus was first detected in the United States in 1999,” the CDC reported. While Illinois does not rank among the top five states in terms of cases, there have been 21 reported human cases of West Nile Virus in Illinois as of Aug. 21. Those cases have been clustered in the Chicago area, with 13 human cases in Cook County and one in Lake County. In the map above, Patch charted both cases of West Nile Virus confirmed in both humans and mosquitoes, …

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About Town

Binge Drinking

How can we raise our kids to raise their awareness?

I’m thinking about alcohol a lot lately.  Maybe it’s because St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow. Maybe it’s because alcoholism has touched many loved ones in my life. Maybe it’s because I have two wonderful friends who’ve given up drinking for Lent. Maybe it’s because I just read the most heartbreaking story about a young girl, Shelby Allen of Redding, California, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2008.  According to an article by Andrea Todd in the April, 2011 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, Shelby, a seventeen-year-old, was supposed to spend the first night of her winter break at her best friend’s house.  The two ended up driving to another friend’s house where the parents allowed their underage children to drink alcohol -- and frequently…

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