Over the last year, Americans have been continually reminded of the macabre fates that await the unsuspecting. Airline travelers, paper shufflers in cubicles and anyone with a mailbox have all become targets for an unseemly demise. This summer, the spread of the West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen, has taken the American imagination hostage.

Until 1999, the disease was undetected in North America; today, it has infected not only some species of its mosquito hosts, but also 100 species of birds as well as mammals like horses and humans. However, most mosquitoes are not infected with West Nile virus, not all carrier mosquitoes spread disease and most infections do not lead to death.

This summer, West Nile has gotten considerable play time in the news and on the airwaves. West Nile fever is not so much the disease itself, but the paranoia surrounding it.

Consider all the summer slow-pitch leagues and all the kids at summer camp. So far, there are fewer than 20 confirmed West Nile fatalities this year. More than five times that number die daily in car crashes, yet West Nile has Americans flocking to emergency rooms, concerned that their headaches are really encephalitis.

While death due to brain swelling caused by a virus contracted through a mosquito bite is a scary prospect, West Nile hardly constitutes a public health hazard on the order of an epidemic. It is one of those negative externalities of a global world, with people and goods exchanged internationally.

West Nile is also part of a larger trend of exotic infectious diseases aroused from dormancy by changes in habitat, population movement and global climate. Public health measures like proper sanitation, vaccination of livestock and pest control in problematic areas are all in the arsenal to combat West Nile virus. Moreover, the disease seems to be currently affecting those with compromised body defenses, such as those with autoimmune diseases and the elderly. In the same way, West Nile virus should not cause Americans to unduly alter their lives or fail to enjoy the outdoors.

West Nile virus is a concern for anyone enjoying their summer outdoors, but no more than salmonella in the potato salad, the swerving drunk driver or UV rays in the sun. Applying insect repellent and covering arms and legs when in areas with many mosquitoes are the best precautions against West Nile. That and the overwhelming odds that neither the mosquito that bites is a carrier nor that a carrier mosquito would cause a deadly infection.