Ben Harris is vice president of business development at Medical City Plano. He’s also a Plano City Council member. Last year at this time, the 38-year-old was in good health. On Sept. 2, 2017, however, he fell in the middle of the night, was airlifted to Med City Plano, and within 24 hours would be paralyzed. Harris had contracted neuroinvasive West Nile Virus from a mosquito bite.
A year later, after intensive rehab, he’s back at work and walking without assistance. See more about Harris’ battle with the life-threatening disease in a recent video from Medical City.
Neuroinvasive West Nile is rare—just one in every 150 infections of the virus ends up impacting the brain and spinal cord. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says between .25 and .49 Texans per 100,000 population contracted the disease in 2017.
