Fauci hospitalized after testing positive for West Nile virus, now recovering at home

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic response, was hospitalized earlier this month with the West Nile virus (WNV), a spokesperson for Fauci tells Fox News.

Fauci, 83, was hospitalized before he returned home where he is now recovering, the spokesperson says. 

The nation’s former top infectious-disease official is expected to make a full recovery from the virus, which is most commonly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Fauci was in hospital for six days. 

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Former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci was hospitalized earlier this month with the West Nile virus and is now recovering at home, according to a report.  (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.)

The virus first entered the U.S. in 1999, and it has become the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the country, per the CDC. 

Symptoms include fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea or rash, although a vast majority — around 80% — of the people who contract WNV will not experience any symptoms. There are no vaccines or treatments for the virus.

In most cases, the virus is spread when Culex mosquitoes bite infected birds and then bite people and other animals, per the CDC’s website. More than 1,800 people were hospitalized with the virus last year in the U.S., leading to 182 deaths, per CDC data. 

Fauci was the former director of the National Institution of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) and was a leading figure on both former President Trump and President Biden's coronavirus response teams. Before his retirement, he had worked for over 50 years in the American public health sector, advising every president since former President Reagan. 

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Dr. Fauci is sworn-in before testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 3, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Fauci was a regular guest on cable news, primetime television, late-night shows and podcasts, offering his medical advice throughout the pandemic. Over time, he became a politically divisive figure on the left and right regarding issues such as masks, lockdown policies and the origins of COVID-19.

Famously, he sparred with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in committee hearings over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether his department within the National Institute of Health funded gain-of-function research.

Paul has claimed that government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19. These officials, Paul says, knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of those officials revealed this scheme to the public.

In June, he denied attempting to suppress the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began as a result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, during his testimony before the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The subcommittee reviewed classified State Department records that members say "credibly suggest" COVID-19 originated from a "lab-related accident in Wuhan, China" and that the Chinese Communist Party "attempted to cover up the lab leak."

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Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrived to participate in the White House COVID-19 Response Team's regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus, Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Additionally, Fauci also said there wasn't a controlled trial conducted justifying a six-foot social distancing rule and he defended vaccine mandates for students, employees and the military by stating, "Vaccines save lives. It is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide." 

"In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long. It was measured in months," he added. 

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.