Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary Robert S. Zimmerman Jr. announced Aug. 15 that West Nile virus had been confirmed in a horse at Philadelphia Park in Bensalem, Bucks County.


According to a United States Department of Agriculture Emergency Warning, “the horse in Pennsylvania is a 3-year-old filly that is recovering from her illness. A definitive date of onset has not been reported, but it was sometime in late July or very early August. The horse had a history of travel from Florida about three to four weeks before onset of illness; given an incubation period of 15 days or less for WNV in horses, infection most probably occurred in Pennsylvania.


“There have been recent reports of WNV-positive birds in Bucks County and in neighboring Philadelphia. WNV infection was confirmed in both horses at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL),” the report read

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