The announcement made by Kern County Public Health on Friday affirmed that the first case of the West Nile Virus in Kern County. Officials said that the infected person is an adult between the age of 40 and 50. The victim contracted the potentially deadly disease back in August in Bakersfield.

Claudia Jonah, Interim Health Officer of Kern County said: "The person did recall being bitten by mosquitoes and they spend a lot of times outdoors and they didn't particularly use any preventive issues like insect repellent, things like that."

This is the first case of WNV infection this year as compared to 140 cases last year. The vigorous efforts made by the health authorities led to this dramatic drop in the number of infected persons.

Gene Abbott, Superintendent of Kern Mosquito and Vector Control District said: "We took a real aggressive approach this year. We took aerial photographs early, to find those unserviced swimming pools and last year we treated about 865 unserviced swimming pools, this year so far we're over 2,000."