{"id":412086,"date":"2026-08-20T18:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/412086\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:12:09","slug":"travis-county-reports-first-human-case-of-west-nile-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/412086\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis County reports first human case of West Nile for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Travis County resident has tested positive for West Nile virus, marking the county\u2019s first human case of 2026. The case comes amid an active mosquito season<\/a> in Central Texas spurred by warm and wet weather conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are moving into the fall, it\u2019s important to remember we still have several months of mosquito season left to go here in Austin,\u201d said Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County health authority, in a news release announcing the case.<\/p>\n

Williamson County<\/a> and Hays County<\/a> have also announced human cases of West Nile in the past week. Mosquito pools have also tested positive for the virus in each county. A few cases are typical in a given year; last year, Austin Public Health confirmed five human cases in Austin-Travis County.<\/p>\n

The virus is not spread by human-to-human contact. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only around 20% of people who become infected go on to develop symptoms. Those can include headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea and rash.<\/p>\n

A small number of people will experience severe symptoms that affect the central nervous system, which can lead to hospitalization or death. Older adults and people with serious underlying medical conditions are at the highest risk.<\/p>\n

People can protect against mosquito bites by using insect repellant and covering their arms and legs while outside, especially between dawn and dusk. According to APH, it\u2019s also a good idea to drain any standing water in your yard to prevent mosquito breeding.<\/p>\n

Support for KUT’s reporting on health news comes from St. David\u2019s Foundation<\/a>. Sponsors do not influence KUT’s editorial decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Travis County resident has tested positive for West Nile virus, marking the county\u2019s first human case of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13723,132,134,133,17878,2143,54497,107111,27,394,45113,107112],"class_list":["post-412086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-13723","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-public-health","tag-central-texas","tag-illness","tag-mosquitoes","tag-texas","tag-travis-county","tag-virus","tag-west-nile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}