Two months before Chuck Clark-Martin died, he was exercising six days a week.
A sergeant with the Denver Sheriff Department for 35 years, Clark-Martin maintained an active lifestyle into his 60s and showed no signs of slowing down.
Until he suddenly got sick. Doctors were stumped. On October 28th, Clark-Martin died at the age of 63. The cause? West Nile encephalitis, a rare form of the virus that attacks the brain. There is no cure.
Research for West Nile has drawn protests from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But Clark-Martin’s family is fighting back, insisting this work is more necessary than ever as the virus takes root in the state.
“People don’t know this is occurring,” Katelyn Lucero, Clark-Martin’s daughter, said. “They need to know there’s no treatment.”
With last month’s hard freeze, the West Nile virus season in Colorado has reached its end. But after two deaths and nearly 100 infections to date in 2018, experts said the virus is here to stay – and it’s a cause for concern.
Since West Nile first came to Colorado in 2002, only four states have a higher average incidence rate than the Centennial State’s rate of 1.35 incidents per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2018, there have been 94 reported human cases in Colorado, according to data compiled by the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment. Last year, there were 68 human cases in the state, including four deaths.
Nationally, there have been more than 2,300 West Nile cases this year, leading to 110 deaths, according to CDC data.
West Nile season typically runs from June through the beginning of October, when mosquitoes are active, according to the CDC.
The virus most often spreads to people via mosquito bites, but a vast majority of those infected feel no symptoms. For those that do, symptoms include fever, headache, body aches, vomiting and diarrhea. In rarer instances, like in Clark-Martin’s case, individuals can develop serious illness that affects the central nervous system, the CDC said.
A confluence of factors make Colorado more hospitable to the virus, including the climate and species of mosquito, said Dr. Jennifer House, an infectious disease expert with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
“We have enough of the virus for it to be a concern to people,” House said.
There are no vaccines or medications to prevent or treat West Nile virus.
The virus’ victims this year were Clark-Martin and longtime Colorado journalist Ed Marston.
“This is not just a little thing”
As state experts attempt to learn more about the virus, there has been some pushback from animal rights groups on how it is researched.
PETA sent a letter to Colorado State University in mid-November asking the school to end experiments that involve infecting wild birds with the West Nile virus. In its letter, PETA argued that experiments on birds have “little relevance to West Nile virus infection in human populations.”
CSU countered that the research is vital to saving human and animal lives.
Lucero read about PETA’s protests and felt compelled to speak out. She watched firsthand as the virus debilitated her once-active father. She saw doctors identify the cause of his ailment, and not be able to do anything to stop it. West Nile is personal.
“I emailed the head of research (at CSU) and said it’s a good idea to continue testing,” Lucero said. “I think it’s really important to do that research.”
West Nile is a disease that flies under the radar, she said. It’s time to change that.
“This is not just a little thing,” she said, “that shouldn’t be taken care of.”
“A Perfect Storm”
The West Nile virus is a relatively new concern for Americans. In fact, the first reported case in the U.S. wasn’t detected until 1999, and Colorado saw no sign of the virus until 2002, according to CSU.
Then, in 2003, the virus attacked the state like no place else. Since Colorado had no prior history with West Nile, birds, people and other wildlife had no immunity, and the results were catastrophic.
“It was kind of like this perfect storm,” House said.
Nearly 3,000 people were infected that year. Sixty-three died. It was the worst epidemic in the United States, and no state has reached those numbers in any year since, CDC data showed.
Since 2003, outbreaks of the virus have varied from year to year in the state, with a low of seven cases reported in 2011. Whereas 2003 was an epidemic, House explains, West Nile has now become endemic.
“The virus is here and will never go away,” she said. “We would never expect it to be as bad as 2003, but we expect it never goes away.”
