Season nears for mosquito-related diseases
Health officials offer safety tips
The endless June drizzle has not produced enough rain to bring a massive onslaught of mosquitoes this summer, but populations will probably be slightly above average and public health officials will be on the lookout for spikes in cases of West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis, specialists say.
“It’s very early in the cycle for West Nile,’’ said David Henley, superintendent of the East Middlesex Mosquito Control Project. His team’s efforts have focused mainly on using larvicide, a substance used to kill mosquiti larvae, to treat storm drains, swimming pools, and other containers that have been holding water, since West Nile virus is often transmitted by a species of mosquito that breeds in those conditions.
In addition to spraying for mosquitoes, county mosquito control projects will gather specimens to send to the lab at the state Department of Public Health to be tested for the West Nile and encephalitis viruses.
The Public Health Department will also gather its own specimens around the state for testing. The first test results should be in next week.
“As the temperature goes up and people start going outside, we want to make sure that people are aware of that fact that some mosquitoes do carry disease,’’ said Dr. Catherine Brown, state public health veterinarian. While the month’s rains may not cause a bump in mosquito numbers, the mild winter and prolonged snow cover may be factors that lead to elevated numbers as the summer progresses, Brown said.
While specialists say it is too early to tell if there will be increased risk for the mosquito-borne diseases, all agree that there will be some level of risk as long as mosquitoes are buzzing about.
“West Nile is here to stay,’’ said Richard Pollack, public health entomologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and the commissioner of the Norfolk County Mosquito Control Project.
“I would be very surprised it didn’t rear it’s ugly head and infect many humans and tens of thousands of birds’’ as it tends to do every year, said Pollack. Many people who are infected with West Nile may show no symptoms or may have mild symptoms like those of a summer cold, while a few may get extremely sick and even die, he said.
However, Eastern equine encephalitis has a much lower survival rate and causes extensive, irreversible neurological damage. The risk of acquiring that is much lower than acquiring West Nile, though, because it is limited to very specific geographic regions, namely cedar marshes, Pollack said.
The risk of acquiring either virus is highest in the late summer, specialists say, but the following precautions can be taken all season long to reduce the risk of infection, according to Julia Gunn, director of communicable diseases at the Boston Public Health Commission:
