Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former government scientist who was both lauded and criticized for his work on Covid-19, was recently hospitalized with a case of West Nile virus and is recovering at home, according to a spokeswoman for the doctor.
“A full recovery is expected,” the spokeswoman, Jenn Kuzmuk, said in a statement on Sunday on behalf of Dr. Fauci, 83, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
She did not elaborate on where he was hospitalized or for how long.
Dr. Jonathan LaPook, the chief medical correspondent for CBS News, shared on social media that Dr. Fauci had told him that he had fever, chills and severe fatigue and that he was hospitalized this month. Dr. Fauci said he was most likely infected by a mosquito bite that he got in his backyard, Dr. LaPook said.
West Nile virus is most commonly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito and is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People become infected with the virus after mosquitoes feed on infected birds and then bite people, according to the C.D.C.
“People are considered dead-end hosts because, unlike birds, they do not develop high enough levels of virus in their bloodstream and cannot pass the virus on to other biting mosquitoes,” the agency says on its website.
West Nile cases primarily occur during mosquito season, which starts in the summer and continues through the fall. Symptoms may include fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea or rash.
At least 216 cases of West Nile virus have been detected in 33 states this year, according to the C.D.C. There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat West Nile virus in people. The best prevention against the virus is to avoid mosquito bites.
Lauded as the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s former chief medical adviser, retired in December 2022 as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, after 38 years.
As the public face of American science for decades, Dr. Fauci advised seven presidents and guided the country’s response to infectious disease outbreaks from the AIDS epidemic to Covid-19.
Dr. Fauci joined the faculty at Georgetown University last year as a distinguished university professor at its medical school.
In June, testifying before a House panel investigating Covid’s origins, he denied Republican allegations that he had helped fund research that led to the pandemic or that he had covered up the possibility of its origins in a laboratory.
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