CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — If you have outdoor plans this holiday weekend don’t forget the mosquito repellent.
Health officials report three recent deaths from West Nile virus in Wisconsin and Illinois, and one rare death from eastern equine encephalitis in New Hampshire.
As of this week the Virginia Department of Health reported three neuro-invasive cases of West Nile and one human case of EEE. None were in the Hampton Roads region, though both illnesses have been detected in mosquito pools in several local cities.
Using mosquito traps, Chesapeake has detected West Nile several times this summer.
Mostly in the highly populated areas of Greenbrier and Western Branch.
“We immediately react by sending on our spray trucks,” said Lisa Wagenbrenner, director of the Chesapeake Mosquito Control Commission. “We also do a lot of larvicide standing water. We go door to door, knock on doors, let folks know, do backyard inspections and things like that.”
Mosquito control asks that residents do their part too by tipping and tossing standing water in their own yard. Just a bottle cap of water is all it takes for a mosquito to breed.
If you have a bird bath or large area that won’t drain, drop-in a mosquito dunk to kill larvae.
You can pick them up at any home improvement store.
“The best measure against infection is preventing it,” said Collette Dougherty with the Chesapeake Health Department. “So what we encourage folks to do is to avoid activity at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active.”
If you can take the heat, wear long sleeves and long pants to avoid mosquito bites,
make sure the screens on your doors and windows are in tact and know the signs of infection — from a slight fever, headache, body aches and a rash, to the rapid onset of disorientation, coma and rarely death.
“Thankfully, we haven’t had any cases, human cases of West Nile virus or Eastern equine encephalitis in several years,” Dougherty said. “We hope that that trend continues.”
