Cumberland County working to prevent the spread of West Nile Virus

The Cumberland County Vector Control Office is working to prevent the spread of the West Nile Virus. Marcus Synder, Public Health Specialist with the Cumberland County Vector says his team is proactive in combating the spread of the virus.

“We set data collection traps weekly throughout the county to collect and test mosquito populations for West Nile virus. Whatever we collect, we send to the state of Pennsylvania to the Department of Protection of Environmental Protection, and they test it. They give us back the results. And then based on that, determines how we move forward with specifically adult treatments. Another thing that we try to do is incorporate treating or eliminating any standing water throughout the county. So, there's not an opportunity for those adults to materialize throughout the county.”

The West Nile Virus is asymptomatic according to Synder.

“I believe it's 2% have neuroinvasive, meaning encephalitis within the brain. So, it can be very dangerous if you have that that form of West Nile. And then the other cases where they're not asymptomatic, they're not invasive, it presents its flu symptoms. So, it can be very dangerous. So that's why we try to kind of curb it where we can. So, if we know it's president of population, we're not getting to that point where people are getting sick by it. We're keeping it in the mosquito population.”

Many people struggle to correctly identify mosquitoes. Synder says mosquitos are typically smaller.

“a lot of the times they're going to be smaller. So, the bigger ones that you see that people think of, I heard them called things like hawk mosquitoes. And people will think that they're male mosquitoes. Those are actually crane flies. And they actually are pollinators. They don't bite humans. They don't bite anything, actually. They feed on flowers. So, the mosquitoes are going to be smaller and it's going to have a thing called a proboscis, which is kind of like its nose. That's what it drinks the blood with. So that's what you want to look for when you're looking at a bug. It's going to be definitely smaller in size, but you want to look for that proboscis to see if it has the ability to bite anything. That's what differentiates a mosquito from other insects.”

Support WITF: https://www.witf.org/support/give-now/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.