Seminar to show mosquito types
Berry College will host a mosquito monitoring course for public health officials from across Georgia on Monday and Tuesday. Public health personnel in Georgia have already indicated concerns about the potential for another Zika virus outbreak this summer after an incidence in the Brownsville, Texas area last December.
Berry College Biology Professor Bruce Conn said different mosquitoes carry different viruses. Zika, chikungunya and dengue and yellow fever are all carried by the same mosquitoes, the Aedes aegypti breed. “That’s the No. 1 thing we’re looking at,” Conn said. “The ones that carry West Nile virus are more variable. Those different mosquitoes are to each other like a raccoon is to a field mouse. Two mosquitoes may be no more related than two different mammals.”
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, U.S. Department of Agriculture representatives and regional public health staff from as far away as Augusta and Columbus, are all expected to be in attendance along with county public health personnel and others to learn more about ways to identify the various mosquitoes that carry the different health care concerns and how to educate the public about ways to stop an outbreak before it can get started.
Conn said the other concern is the mosquitoes that carry Zika are domestic mosquitoes that prefer to live around human habitations. “They are also what are called container breeders, whereas the West Nile Culex mosquitoes are more likely to be out in streams and ponds,” Conn said. “The Aedes mosquitoes that carry Bruce Conn
Zika are more likely to live in a little pocket of water left in the gutter of your house or a little pocket of water in a flower pot outside the house.”
Conn said the Aedes mosquitoes that flourish in a closer environment are much more likely to spread a virus more quickly than other breeds of mosquitoes.
State entomologist Rosmarie Kelly will be leading much of the two-day seminar.
Logan Boss, Region One Georgia Department of Public Health public information officer, said “We are getting to the time of year when mosquito borne diseases become more of a problem. Since Zika was first identified in the U.S., Georgia has reported 117 travel-related cases of the disease. “There has been no local transmission of Zika virus in Georgia,” Boss said. “State public health officials have been working and planning more than you would imagine over the winter months and into the spring to be ready in case we do have local transmission here.”
Boss said the best thing people can do to prevent Zika transmission is to tip and toss containers where mosquitoes could breed. “Do that diligently at least once a week through the summer. That will help us tremendously to minimize the likelihood of having local Zika transmission,” Boss said.
The seminar will meet in McAllister Hall labs Monday and Tuesday, working with students alongside the public health officials. Logan Boss