North Carolina child recovers from rare mosquito-borne illness, family joins research effort
MARION, N.C. -- Granger Horney, from Marion, battled a rare mosquito-borne disease when he was 5 years old.
Cody Horney, Granger's father, said his son started having seizures, vomiting, and being disoriented in July 2024. He described being terrified and not knowing his son was fighting a rare, mosquito-borne disease: La Crosse virus.
"We took him to the emergency room probably three times. The first couple times, they assumed it was something viral," Horney said. He said they eventually took Granger to Mission Hospital in Asheville.
La Crosse virus is a mosquito-borne disease transmitted by the eastern treehole mosquito (Aedes triseriatus). The rare virus is isolated to rural regions of Appalachia but affects western North Carolinians more than anywhere else in the United States.
After seeking symptom-based treatment at Mission Hospital in Asheville, Granger made a full recovery. There, the Horney family decided to participate in a study about the virus - to help prevent another child from going through the same ordeal. The study was co-led by vector-borne disease expert Ross Boyce, MD, MSc.
"You can get brain damage when inflammation happens with the infection. Twenty percent of kids can end up with learning disabilities, migraines, epilepsy, behavioral problems," Boyce said.
"Now that we started to get some samples, we started to get some early leads on how we can control the infected mosquitos," he added.
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