But there’s this: The Zika epidemic sweeping South and Central America is highlighting an important but relatively obscure function of government — mosquito control.
“There’s going to be a lot of attention to mosquito control and vector control, which we think is fantastic,” said Angela Beehler, manager of the Benton County Mosquito Control District.
There is virtually no risk a local resident will contract Zika via a mosquito bite, unless they travel in the affected area, according to both Beehler and her Franklin County counterpart, David Dorsett.
There are 22 species of mosquito in the Tri-City area. The tropical varieties that carry Zika are not among them.
Zika spreads when mosquitoes move from infected to uninfected people. Symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain and red eye, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While usually mild, the virus can have devastating consequences for developing fetuses.
“We don’t have much of a chance of getting it because we have the species, but not the subspecies,” Dorsett said.
Beehler, who has spent the past 15 years battling mosquitoes as a public health threat, said she’d never celebrate the emergence of a new epidemic, particularly one that’s so harmful to unborn children. She has a 4-month-old.
But Zika brings not only headlines, but pressure to strengthen budgets for surveillance and control. The Benton County agency spends about $1.6 million on mosquito eradication. Franklin County’s budget is also about $1.6 million.
Mosquito species found here can —and do — carry West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis and Western Equine encephalitis. Every time a stagnant pool of water is treated, it’s one less opportunity for mosquitoes to breed and spread disease.
“I tell my workers what we do is so cool and wonderful and it has such a huge impact on public health,” Beehler said. “We are saving people’s lives.”
Despite the lack of a real threat at the moment, Zika could bring mosquito control operations the same level of attention they saw in 2009 when West Nile, another mosquito-borne virus, arrived in Washington. The state recorded 38 humans infected in 16 counties and one death, an elderly Sunnyside woman.
“When West Nile virus first hit in the area, there was a lot of interest in it,” said Dorsett, adding interest waned as reported cases fell off.
In Eastern Washington, mosquito season typically arrives with the warming days of April and lasts until the first hard frost in late September or early October.
It’s difficult to handicap the 2016 mosquito season, Dorsett said. The deep freeze that socked the area in December and January helped by killing overwintering adult mosquitoes but would have had little impact on dormant eggs.
Irrigation is the larger culprit. Three-fourths of Franklin County is irrigated.
“Even if there’s a drought, we have that irrigation so we don’t slow down,” Dorsett said.
The Benton and Franklin districts are preparing by buying equipment and chemicals, training employees and hiring seasonal staff.
The season officially kicks off April 30, when the Benton County district holds its annual tire collection event. Old tires are notorious breeding grounds for the worst form of mosquitoes. The same strains that carry West Nile favor “polluted, stinky, still, standing” water.
Benton County Mosquito Control holds its annual tire collection drive April 30. The strains of mosquito that carry West Nile virus are partial to breeding in discarded tires.
When the first mosquitoes emerge, both districts will deploy small armies to treat stagnant water. When adults emerge a month later, they’ll bring out the fogging trucks and aerial sprayers.
Benton Mosquito Control covers seven municipalities in Benton County, as well as a small slice of Yakima County extending to Mabton and Yakima. At the height of the season, it will have about 20 employees waging war on mosquitoes.
It is funded by a property tax levy of 9.6 cents per $1,000 of assessed value on property in Benton County and $6.60 per acre on its Yakima County territory.
Franklin County Mosquito Control is a relative newcomer. It formed in 2003 and covers the entire 1,300-plus-square-mile county.
At the peak of the season, it will have about 12 employees performing abatement work. It is funded by a fee of $30 levied on irrigated parcels and $15 on non-irrigated ones.
The CDC reports there have been no locally transmitted Zika cases in the continental U.S. The only reports are tied to travelers returning from infected areas.
Monday, the Associated Press reported the U.S. had added four destinations to its Zika travel alert, including American Samoa, Costa Rica, Curacao and Nicaragua.
The alert list previously covered much of Latin America as well as the Caribbean countries of Barbados, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, St. Martin, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Cape Verde islands off the coast of western Africa and Samoa in the South Pacific are covered by the alert as well.
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