Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said he feared he would never “return to normal” after he contracted West Nile virus.
Fauci, who served as the face of the Trump and Biden administration responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades, wrote an op-ed published Monday in The New York Times about his hospitalization and recovery.
“After I spent more than 50 years chasing and fighting viruses, one fought back and nearly took me down,” Fauci wrote.
Fauci, 83, said he likely contracted the virus outside his home in Washington. In mid-August, he began to feel weak and exhausted but thought it could have been lingering symptoms from contracting COVID-19 in July.
He was admitted to the hospital on Aug. 16, “delirious and incoherent with a temperature of 103 degrees.” Fauci spent five and a half days in the hospital, where he was treated for sepsis before blood testing revealed he had West Nile virus.
“There is no treatment for West Nile virus disease, and I was left to deal with its toll on my body. It was terrifying,” he wrote, detailing how weak he became both physically and mentally.
“A very scary part of the ordeal was the effect on my cognition. I was disoriented, unable to remember certain words, asking questions of my family that I should have known answers to,” Fauci said. “I was afraid that I would never recover and return to normal.”
The West Nile virus is spread through mosquito bites. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it can lead to body aches, fever, rash and diarrhea. No vaccines or treatments are currently available, and about 1,000 Americans are hospitalized with a severe form of the illness.
Fauci’s spokesperson confirmed in August that he had been hospitalized and was home resting. Although Fauci details in his op-ed that he was concerned about making a recovery, his spokesperson said he was expected to make a full recovery.
As of early October, Fauci said he was walking multiple miles a day and his cognitive issues had cleared. He said he was on his way to total recovery, but “it has been a harrowing experience.”
“I tell my story because West Nile virus is a disease that, for many people, can have devastating and permanent consequences,” he said.
Fauci warned that the virus has risks of permanent neurological damage and even death. While it’s been identified in 46 states across the country this year, not much is being done about West Nile “from scientific and public awareness perspectives,” he said.
“Considerably more resources must be put into addressing this threat now, not when the threat becomes an even greater crisis,” Fauci said. “As a society, we cannot accept this as the status quo.”
Fauci retired in 2022 and recently released a book in June, reflecting on his career. He was called to testify before House Republicans earlier this year about the COVID-19 pandemic. His fiery testimony was the first time he spoke before a congressional hearing in nearly two years.