DENHAM SPRINGS – An 84-year-old woman from Livingston Parish is recovering after becoming Louisiana’s first confirmed case of West Nile Virus in 2025.

Fay DuPont was hospitalized on June 13 after suddenly experiencing dizziness and disorientation. Initially misdiagnosed with meningitis, DuPont’s condition rapidly worsened. 

"That was the scary part," her son Joey DuPont said. "Just seeing her every day going backwards. She couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't go to the bathroom. She couldn't do the normal stuff on her own.”

After a lengthy stay doctors confirmed she contracted the first case of West Nile virus in the state this year.

"They released us from the hospital 10 days later, and on the 11th day they called us to tell us it was West Nile that she had contracted," DuPont said. 

Dupont lives in Denham Springs, where mosquito spraying begins for the city this coming Monday. 

"You kind of forget about mosquitoes during the winter," Mayor Gerard Landry said. "But early spring, when you hear about this... it’s real."

Landry says the issue hits close to home.

"Back in 2015, when I first took office, I had just lost a friend to West Nile," Landry said.

Livingston Parish dissolved its dedicated mosquito abatement district in 2015 after funding dried up. Since then, individual municipalities have had to take matters into their own hands.

"There are pockets of population, like Walker, Denham Springs, Albany where it makes more sense for us to do our own spraying," Landry said.

A 2019 effort to reestablish parish-wide spraying failed when voters in Districts 2 and 3 rejected a proposed monthly mosquito control fee by a 2-to-1 margin.

"When the parish closed down their mosquito program," Landry added, "they donated their equipment to the municipalities that wanted to do their own."

With summer in full swing, Dupont’s family is sharing her story in hopes that it leads others to stay vigilant.

"She's getting better. I would say she’s on the mend," DuPont said. "If you start feeling dizzy and spike a fever, it might be West Nile."

Dupont is now undergoing three hours of therapy daily as part of her recovery. On Friday, she walked 200 steps and is expected to leave rehab soon.