The Orange County Health Care Agency announced yesterday that a 72-year-old woman is the West Nile virus’ first victim for 2008 in California. Several tests proved that the woman died due to complications linked to the virus. Unfortunately, she developed West Nile’s neurological disease which proved to be fatal.

The health authorities did not disclose any information about the time the woman spent hospitalized or the date she reached the hospital.

In the past four years there have been no deaths linked to the West Nile virus and the authorities consider this month’s event a sign to increase their efforts to protect the population in order to avoid an incident similar to the one in 2004 when Southern California had 710 infected residents and 21 died. So far in 2008, the county registered 30 cases of people infected with the virus.

There are several campaigns all across the country, looking to properly inform the population on the dangers of the virus and on the ways of successfully avoiding it.

"We think it is very important that people take the precautions they can take to protect themselves against mosquito bites," said Howard Sutter, spokesman for the Orange County Health Care Agency. He also added: "This is an important reminder that this can be a serious illness. It is a very unpredictable virus."

The reason why the West Nile virus is considered so variable is because most of the people do not become ill, as it only affects about 20 percent of the people infected. Usually, it takes the form of a powerful flu but in the most severe cases it can cause encephalitis, meningitis and death.