Ten cases of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and one case of West Nile virus (WNV) have been confirmed by serological testing as of April 3 in eight Florida counties, according to Leroy Coffman, DVM, Florida’s state veterinarian and director of the Division of Animal Industry. This is the first reported case of WNV in Florida this year, and possibly the first in the United States this year.

Nine of the cases of EEE–six are confirmed dead–and the case of WNV were in horses, and there has been one additional case of EEE in an emu. Six suspected equine cases of EEE are pending confirmation; only one of the six horses is alive as of this writing. The affected counties include Lake, Polk, Marion, Gilcrest, Bradford, Putnam, Suwanee, and Lafayette counties. The WNV case was confirmed in an unvaccinated 10-month-old Quarter Horse in Levy County. The horse first started showing clinical signs on March 27 and died a few days later