Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former chief medical advisor to the president, was diagnosed with West Nile virus earlier this month, according to a spokesperson for Fauci.

Fauci, 83 — who was the face of the U.S. response to the COVID pandemic in 2020 — is now recovering at home after being hospitalized for six days.

He is expected to make a full recovery, the spokesperson told Fox News.

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What to know about West Nile virus

As of Aug. 20, there were 216 West Nile virus cases in the U.S. across 33 states, per the CDC.

Among those, 142 cases were neuroinvasive (severe).

Since the West Nile virus first entered the U.S. in 1999, it has become the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In most cases, the West Nile virus — a flavivirus in the same family as yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and the Zika virus — is spread when Culex mosquitoes bite infected birds and then bite people and other animals, per the CDC’s website.

The virus is not transmitted through eating or handling infected animals or birds — nor is it spread through physical contact, coughing or sneezing.

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A vast majority — around 80% — of the people who contract the virus will not experience any symptoms, the CDC states on its website.

In most cases, the West Nile virus — a flavivirus in the same family as yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and the Zika virus — is spread when Culex mosquitoes bite infected birds and then bite people and other animals, per the CDC’s website. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, main, E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, top right, NIH-NIAID/IMAGE POINT FR/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images, bottom right.)

“It causes a rash and other symptoms, including swollen lymph nodes, which other viruses in its class do not exhibit,” Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, previously told Fox News Digital.

“It only affects the nervous system 1% of the time and is rarely fatal.”

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Around one in five people will develop febrile illness, which is marked by a fever along with body aches, headache, joint pain, diarrhea, rash and/or vomiting. 

These symptoms usually go away on their own, but some people may have lingering weakness and fatigue months after infection.

West Nile affects the nervous system 1% of the time and is rarely fatal.

In rare cases — about one in every 150 infected people — the virus can lead to serious conditions affecting the nervous system, such as encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord), the CDC states on its website.

Those who develop serious illness may experience headache, stiff neck, high fever, disorientation, vision loss, muscle weakness, convulsions, tremors, coma or paralysis, which occur when there is viral infection of the central nervous system.

Among people who have this invasive form of the illness, around 10% will die.

It affects the nervous system 1% of the time and is rarely fatal, statistics show.

Around one in five people will develop febrile illness, which is marked by a fever along with body aches, headache, joint pain, diarrhea, rash and/or vomiting. (iStock)

While anyone can potentially develop severe illness, the highest-risk groups include those over 60 years of age, people who have had organ transplants and those with diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, kidney disease, immune disorders and other certain medical conditions.

“The virus’ effects can be quite serious in the elderly,” Siegel noted.

Diagnosis and treatment

Those who think they might have been infected with WNV should be assessed by a health care provider, the CDC states.

Diagnosis of the infection can be made based on evaluation of symptoms, recent exposure to mosquitoes and testing of blood or spinal fluid.

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Health care providers will typically recommend treating symptoms with over-the-counter pain medications and getting plenty of rest and fluids.

Those who experience severe illness may need to be hospitalized for supportive care.

Preventing the virus

There is currently no vaccine for West Nile virus.

“The virus can be contained through public health measures including more insect repellent with DEET, longer sleeves and less stagnant water in our backyards,” Siegel said.

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Trying to kill adult mosquitoes by spreading too much insecticide can be problematic, the doctor warned. 

“Animals, people with asthma and insects that would otherwise kill the mosquitoes are affected.”

When spending time outdoors, it is recommended that people apply insect repellent containing DEET or other EPA-approved ingredients. (iStock)

The most effective means of prevention is to protect against mosquito bites, the CDC confirmed.

The agency’s recommendations include using insect repellent, wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants, and taking steps to control exposure to mosquitoes — particularly at dawn and dusk.

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Eliminating any standing water outdoors can help prevent mosquitoes from breeding.

Fox News’ Michael Dorgan and Danielle Wallace contributed reporting.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture is studying pigs, cows and other animals at Iowa’s National Animal Disease Center in an attempt to stop the burgeoning bird flu outbreak.
• Scientists were surprised to suddenly discover infections in the udders and milk of dairy cows this year, as the influenza virus is typically considered a respiratory disease.
• Bird flu was first identified in 1959. Since then, it has been detected in a growing number of animals ranging from dogs and cats to sea lions and polar bears, and now dairy cows.

At first glance, it looks like an unassuming farm. Cows are scattered across fenced-in fields. A milking barn sits in the distance with a tractor parked alongside. But the people who work there are not farmers, and other buildings look more like what you’d find at a modern university than in a cow pasture.

Welcome to the National Animal Disease Center, a government research facility in Iowa where 43 scientists work with pigs, cows and other animals, pushing to solve the bird flu outbreak currently spreading through U.S. animals — and develop ways to stop it.

Particularly important is the testing of a cow vaccine designed to stop the continued spread of the virus — thereby, hopefully, reducing the risk that it will someday become a widespread disease in people.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture facility opened in 1961 in Ames, a college town about 45 minutes north of Des Moines. The center is located on a pastoral, 523-acre site a couple of miles east of Ames’ low-slung downtown.

It’s a quiet place with a rich history. Through the years, researchers there developed vaccines against various diseases that endanger pigs and cattle, including hog cholera and brucellosis. And work there during the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 — known at the time as “swine flu” — proved the virus was confined to the respiratory tract of pigs and that pork was safe to eat.

The center has the unusual resources and experience to do that kind of work, said Richard Webby, a prominent flu researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

“That’s not a capacity that many places in the U.S. have,” said Webby, who has been collaborating with the Ames facility on the cow vaccine work.

The campus has 93 buildings, including a high-containment laboratory building whose exterior is reminiscent of a modern megachurch but inside features a series of compartmentalized corridors and rooms, some containing infected animals. That’s where scientists work with more dangerous germs, including the H5N1 bird flu. There’s also a building with three floors of offices that houses animal disease researchers as well as a testing center that is a “for animals” version of the CDC labs in Atlanta that identify rare (and sometimes scary) new human infections.

About 660 people work at the campus — roughly a third of them assigned to the animal disease center, which has a $38 million annual budget. They were already busy with a wide range of projects but grew even busier this year after the H5N1 bird flu unexpectedly jumped into U.S. dairy cows.

“It’s just amazing how people just dig down and make it work,” said Mark Ackermann, the center’s director.

The virus was first identified in 1959 and grew into a widespread and highly lethal menace to migratory birds and domesticated poultry. Meanwhile, the virus evolved, and in the past few years has been detected in a growing number of animals ranging from dogs and cats to sea lions and polar bears.

Despite the spread in different animals, scientists were still surprised this year when infections were suddenly detected in cows — specifically, in the udders and milk of dairy cows. It’s not unusual for bacteria to cause udder infections, but a flu virus?

“Typically we think of influenza as being a respiratory disease,” said Kaitlyn Sarlo Davila, a researcher at the Ames facility.

Much of the research on the disease has been conducted at a USDA poultry research center in Athens, Georgia, but the appearance of the virus in cows pulled the Ames center into the mix.

Amy Baker, a researcher who has won awards for her research on flu in pigs, is now testing a vaccine for cows. Preliminary results are expected soon, she said.

USDA spokesperson Shilo Weir called the work promising but early in development. There is not yet an approved bird flu vaccine being used at U.S. poultry farms, and Weir said that while poultry vaccines are being pursued, any such strategy would be challenging and would not be guaranteed to eliminate the virus.

Baker and other researchers also have been working on studies in which they try to see how the virus spreads between cows. That work is going on in the high-containment building, where scientists and animal caretakers don specialized respirators and other protective equipment.

The research exposed four yearling heifers to a virus-carrying mist and then squirted the virus into the teats and udders of two lactating cows. The first four cows got infected but had few symptoms. The second two got sicker — suffering diminished appetite, a drop in milk production and producing thick, yellowish milk.

The conclusion that the virus mainly spread through exposure to milk containing high levels of the virus — which could then spread through shared milking equipment or other means — was consistent with what health investigators understood to be going on. But it was important to do the work because it has sometimes been difficult to get complete information from dairy farms, Webby said.

“At best we had some good hunches about how the virus was circulating, but we didn’t really know,” he added.

USDA scientists are doing additional work, checking the blood of calves that drank raw milk for signs of infection.

A study conducted by the Iowa center and several universities concluded that the virus was likely circulating for months before it was officially reported in Texas in March.

The study also noted a new and rare combination of genes in the bird flu virus that spilled over into the cows, and researchers are sorting out whether that enabled it to spread to cows, or among cows, said Tavis Anderson, who helped lead the work.

Either way, the researchers in Ames expect to be busy for years.

“Do they (cows) have their own unique influenzas? Can it go from a cow back into wild birds? Can it go from a cow into a human? Cow into a pig?” Anderson added. “Understanding those dynamics, I think, is the outstanding research question — or one of them.”

Moringa is one of many plants that have been said to come with potential health benefits when consumed. 

Moringa is sold in an assortment of forms, including a stand-alone powder, oils, pill capsules and as one ingredient of many green protein powders. 

Moringa has been around for many years, especially in South Asia as well as Africa, but its popularity in the U.S. has blossomed recently. 

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When incorporating any new supplement into your diet, it’s important to be mindful of aspects like the brand the product is from, always ensuring it is trustworthy and reputable, while also looking into all the ingredients in a specific product. 

“Be careful of the quality,” Isabel Smith, a New York-based registered dietitian and founder of Isabel Smith Nutrition and Lifestyle, told Fox News Digital in a phone call.

“You could run into heavy metals, you could run into bad products,” Smith added. “So you just want to be a conscious consumer as always, and make sure that you are purchasing a product from a company that you trust and love.”

One way to ensure that a product is safe to use is by checking to see if it has been third-party tested. 

“That’s something I always stress, is that you want to look for products that are third-party tested, because then you will know that the ingredient in that product is safe, it’s pure and it has everything in it that it says it has in it,” Jerlyn Jones, an Atlanta-based registered dietitian and owner of The Lifestyle Dietitian LLC, told Fox News Digital, adding that it’s also important to make sure what you’re buying is 100% organic. 

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Unlike matcha, which has also been associated with numerous health benefits and has grown in popularity in recent years, moringa is caffeine-free.

Below are some of the health benefits that are believed to come from moringa.

One way moringa can be added to your diet is by mixing powder into your healthy fruit and vegetable smoothies.  (iStock)

1. Anti-inflammatory benefits
2. Immune system support
3. Anti-aging properties
4. Improved cholesterol and blood sugar levels

1. Anti-inflammatory benefits

One of the biggest health benefits of moringa is that it can be used as a means to fight against inflammation. 

Inflammation is the body’s response to illness or infection, according to Harvard Health. 

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There are many different diseases, including cancer and heart disease, that have been linked to chronic inflammation. 

Foods and supplements with anti-inflammatory properties can help lower the risk of these diseases and others.  

Moringa can be found in a protein powder mixed with a variety of other vitamins and minerals. (iStock)

“It’s got quercetin, which is a natural antihistamine, but also has some anti-inflammatory properties,” Smith said. 

Moringa also has “beta-carotene, which we know is really good for skin health and holds a lot of anti-inflammatory antioxidant capacities. So it seems to be like an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich plant,” Smith told Fox News Digital. 

Even though you could see this health benefit from moringa, it’s vital to remember that one dietary change or added supplement isn’t going to make drastic differences, and living an overall healthy lifestyle that works with your body is what matters most. 

“I don’t think any one thing can make the difference for somebody. I think all the bits and pieces and all the things we do in concert can all make a difference,” said Smith. 

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2. Immune system support

A balanced diet can help provide the body with nutrients to keep it healthy and strong, but sometimes, the nutrients found in food aren’t enough. 

That’s one area where supplements come into play. Sometimes, the body doesn’t get enough of certain nutrients. Supplements can help bring your nutrient intake up. 

Make sure your body is getting all the vitamins and nutrients that it needs to keep your immune system strong and avoid falling ill.  (iStock)

Moringa is packed with different nutrients that can help your immune system’s strength and aid your body in fighting against potential illness. 

“It’s packed with vitamin C and A and vitamin E, calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus. A lot of these nutrients are nutrients that we are very low in,” Jones explained. 

3. Anti-aging properties

If you want younger-looking skin, moringa could help you achieve your goal. 

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“We’re all really concerned about how we’re aging, and those compounds within moringa can help with our skin care and also anti-aging, because it has the anti-inflammatory, and so it’s promising in that way,” said Jones. 

Moringa is sold through many means, including pills, powder, oils and even in skincare products like body butter and serum, leaving consumers with many potential options for adding the supplement to their lives. 

Moringa’s anti-aging properties could lead to healthier, younger-looking skin. (iStock)

Supplements like moringa and the slew of others that have been suggested by experts in part for their anti-aging properties should of course be combined with proper diet and adequate exercise for optimal results. 

4. Improved cholesterol and blood sugar levels

High cholesterol can pose danger to the body.  

There are many lifestyle changes you can make in order to improve cholesterol, like avoiding smoking and foods that are high in saturated and trans fat. 

Jones told Fox News Digital that moringa has been shown to improve cholesterol levels in the body, due to the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants it contains that support overall heart health. 

In addition to improved cholesterol, moringa is also believed to help balance blood sugar levels, which, in turn, can help manage diabetes, according to Jones. 

Of course, before adding moringa to your diet for any of its possible nutritional benefits, be sure to consult your doctor first. 

“Check in with your health care team, your medical team, to make sure that it doesn’t interfere with any other medications that you’re taking,” Jones explained. “Always check in with your doctor whenever you’re deciding to take a supplement.”