Broward lays out plan to fight Zika

Mosquito season might be a little less itchy, or dangerous, in Broward County this year.

New strategies to fight mosquitoes and, in turn, keep the Zika virus in check were introduced at a training session Tuesday at the Highway Bridge Maintenance Division building in Pompano Beach.

Among the plans are 5,000 to 10,000 surveillance traps to be placed throughout the county.

The traps kill mosquitoes without insecticide and allow officials to see where mosquitoes are. They’ll also be using a larvicide to kill mosquito larva.

Zika is associated with birth defects for pregnant women. Making matters worse, only one in five women show symptoms, Candace Royals, with Valent BioSciences, told the crowd Tuesday.

“Because of that, they could be bit by a mosquito, it could be transmitted so you’ve got a disease where you could possibly have no symptoms whatsoever,” she said. “The numbers that we think we know is probably three to four times higher than what’s actually out there.”

Last year, most of the Zika cases were contracted overseas. But now some of those cases are being spread locally either through mosquitoes or sexual contact with someone infected with the virus.

It means Zika could be at least as big a problem as last year, said Anh Ton, Director of Highway and Bridge maintenance and mosquito control for Broward County.

As of Tuesday, Broward had 10 travel-related Zika cases in 2017 while MiamiDade had nine and Palm Beach County had two, according to Florida Department of Health records. Across the state, there were two locally acquired Zika cases.

Symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, muscle pain and headaches.

“The fact is Zika is here on our shores,” said Ton. “It’s in many parts of the U.S. right now.”

“At risk” populations — including pregnant women, women of child-bearing age and other communities that might not be able to afford the larvicide — will be given the product, Ton said.

An $801,900 grant accepted by Broward commissioners last month will help pay for the new arsenal.

The county’s spraying for mosquitoes will be on an as-needed basis if a Zika case pops up. They’ll be using VectoBac WDG, which Ton describes as a natural and organic mosquito spray.

“We selected that product on purpose,” Ton said. “You can spray this over an organic farm and it’ll still be organic. It does not kill birds or bees or other helpful insects. It just targets the [mosquito] larvae.”

Trucks also will spray the product when needed, 100 feet into the air, mostly at night.

“Once it’s sprayed up into the air, hopefully it gets into people’s backyard and lands in those small containers of water,” Ton said.

The county is also training employees from Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Miami-Dade County. Ton is also urging residents to play an equally important role in reducing mosquito populations.

“The message is that it takes a whole village,” Ton said. “It takes us working with the 31 municipalities and homeowners and businesses to do source reduction.”

Source reduction involves people emptying containers of standing water, or using a larvicide product.

The mosquito season coincides with the rainy season, which starts around May, Ton said.

RANDY VAZQUEZ/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Trucks will spray a natural and organic mosquito spray 100 feet into the air, mostly at night.