Municipalities are concerned about Eastern equine encephalitis. Health officials announced last week that an 80-year-old man had contracted the disease, the first human case discovered in Massachusetts since 2020.
The town of Plymouth, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Boston, announced Friday that it was closing public outdoor recreation facilities from dusk to dawn every day after a town horse was infected with the disease.
Separately, state health officials warned that a cluster of four towns south of Worcester — Douglas, Oxford, Sutton and Webster — were at “critical risk” after an Oxford man contracted the virus.
Local and state health officials have asked residents in those cities to avoid peak mosquito-biting times by ending outdoor activities by 6 p.m. through Sept. 30 and by 5 p.m. thereafter, until the first frost.
Residents are also advised to use mosquito repellents when outdoors and to drain any standing water around their homes.
Oxford City Manager Jennifer Callahan wrote in a memo that the family of the man who contracted the virus in mid-August had contacted her office.
“They want people to be aware that this is an extremely serious illness that has terrible physical and emotional consequences, even if the person manages to live,” Callahan wrote.
She said the infected person had often told his family that he had never been bitten by mosquitoes. But just before he became symptomatic, he told them he had been bitten. She said the man remained hospitalized and was “fighting bravely” against the virus.
Ms Callahan added that the family was asking people to take public health advice seriously and do everything they can to protect themselves.
The virus’s presence in Massachusetts this year was confirmed last month in a mosquito sample, and has been found in other mosquitoes across the state since then. In the 2019 outbreak, six deaths were recorded among 12 confirmed cases in Massachusetts. The outbreak continued the following year with five more cases and one more death.
There is no vaccine or treatment for eastern equine encephalitis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that although rare, eastern equine encephalitis is very serious and that about 30% of people infected die. Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea and seizures.
Those who survive are often permanently disabled, and few recover fully, Massachusetts officials say. The disease is common among birds, and while humans and some other mammals can get EEE, they do not spread the disease.
According to the CDC, only a few cases of eastern equine encephalitis are reported each year in the United States, with most infections occurring in the East Coast and Gulf Coast states.
