MODESTO BEE
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
BEE STAFF WRITER

Last Updated: October 19, 2005, 06:40:59 AM PDT

A 63-year-old Patterson man has died of West Nile virus — the first Stanislaus County resident to succumb to the mosquito-borne disease.

Peter Carpenter became the state's 18th West Nile fatality when he died at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock, where he had been in a coma since Sept. 22.

The Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, announced the death but did not identify the victim by name or give his hometown; Carpenter's sister confirmed his identity to The Bee.

"We are grieved to learn that one of our county residents has succumbed to this infection," said Dr. John Walker, county public health officer. "We are clearly on the down-slope of this outbreak; however, the risks persist."

Also Tuesday, the agency reported that three more cases of West Nile virus had been confirmed, bringing to 85 the number of reported cases in Stanislaus County this year.

Officials said two of the new patients — an 81-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman — had the less serious form of the disease, West Nile fever, while an 82-year-old woman was diagnosed with the more serious neuroinvasive form of the disease. In those cases, the brain swells and becomes infected.

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