Health officials sound alarm over concerning discovery made during mosquito testing: ‘Prompting heightened awareness’

2024 was a good year for a certain population in Ohio — which is bad news for the people who live there.

Ohio’s Department of Health’s yearly mosquito surveillance found the West Nile virus is alive and well in the Buckeye State, Hoodline reported.

What’s happening?

The testing collected over 416,000 mosquito samples, finding that over 8% of them across 41 counties tested positive for the West Nile virus.

As Hoodline put it, these rates indicate “a clear presence of the virus” in Ohio. The counties that reported the highest rates — Franklin County followed by Lorain and Summit — are now “prompting heightened awareness and preventive measures to be taken by the residents and local health authorities.”

These surveillance efforts are part of the preventive measures, and Hoodline described them as  “crucial in understanding the prevalence and proactively managing the spread of these vector-borne diseases.”

Why are mosquito-borne illnesses on the rise?

The species of mosquito that spread the West Nile virus fall under the Culex genus, and they have established populations on all of the major inhabited continents. The females lay their eggs in water, using any source from puddles to flooded cellars, rice fields, river edges, ornamental ponds, and more.

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But the real issue and mounting threat is that the Culex survives in high temperatures. The higher the temperature, the faster their eggs hatch, and the more generations they can produce each year, per the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

This means that, as global temperatures continue to rise due to human-generated pollution, the Culex’s potential inhabitable regions expand, and their breeding season gets longer.

The issue is the same for another common disease-spreading type of mosquito, called Aedes, also known as the tiger mosquito.

They are responsible for deadly diseases like Zika, dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever, and more — and as their territories expand, so too does the public health risk posed by these diseases.

What’s being done to minimize the spread?

For Ohio, their detailed surveillance map will serve as a tool to help them “track, avert, and respond to the geographic flow of the West Nile virus as the year progresses,” Hoodline explained.

Officials urged residents to take preventive measures both to keep from getting bitten and to minimize potential breeding spots in the area. This includes using non-toxic sprays or deterrents — like citronella candles, burnt coffee grounds, and vanilla — to covering any water caches and draining any stagnant water.

Scientists are also working on other solutions, such as a vaccine to protect against certain illnesses or methods to sterilize mosquito populations.

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