The Florida Department of Health (FDH) announced Friday that a seven-year-old Alachua County boy recently diagnosed with the West Nile Virus may have contracted the disease from a contaminated blood transfusion. Investigators told health officials that the child recently received "multiple blood products," but insisted they had not reached a conclusion as to the source of the virus. Researchers are currently attempting to trace the tainted blood back to the donors.

According to the FDH, 29 cases of West Nile involving patients who had recently received a blood transfusion have been reported nationwide since August 28. There have been 3,104 confirmed cases of the virus in the United States this year, 172 of them fatal.