Fwd: [sprayno] St. Tammany becomes guinea pig for mosquito treatment

[Guest guest]

Slidell Sentry News (Louisiana)

08/22/01

By: Joni Naquin

SLIDELL—St Tammany Mosquito Control has been experimenting with new

technologies and research this week, just on the heels of discovering a

chicken infected with the St. Louis encephalitis virus in the area.

Dr. Jim Brown, head of the testing and evaluation department at the Navy

Disease Vector Ecology and Control Center, is in St. Tammany Parish

investigating ways to optimize the way mosquito control districts make

aerial pesticide sprays.

He has been working for years on the research and this week officials

will be implementing a new mathematical model to predict the dispersion,

evaporation, and deposition of pesticide sprays.

St. Tammany Mosquito Control Director Chuck Palmisano said the end

result of the research and experiments will be the reduction in the

amount of pesticide used and it will also result in mosquito control

districts saving thousands of dollars a year in pesticide application.

" It costs a lot to spray a small area, " Brown said. " Anytime a district

can save a third of that cost, they have made a significant contribution

to the community by applying less harmful materials to the environment. "

Brown said St. Tammany Mosquito Control is one of the first districts to

use this new technology in aerial sprays.

St. Tammany Parish Mosquito Control may be a breeding ground for new

technologies, but it is all in the hopes the parish itself won't be a

breeding ground for mosquitos.

After last weeks chicken tested positive for encephalitis, Palmisano

said the district is increasing its ground treatments, aerial

treatments, and larvacide treatments.

The district is also collecting live mosquitos to be sent to a lab to

undergo viral analysis " The tests are done as an early warning detection

method, " Palmisano said. " We do this to ensure humans don't get it. "

Despite all the methods to prevent the disease from spreading around the

area, Mosquito Control said a very low percentage of mosquitos are

infected with encephalitis and an even lower percentage of those humans

who are exposed to the virus come down with symptoms.

However, they want to reduce the risk to anyone who has weakened immune

systems, such as the elderly or small children, from catching the

disease.

" We are concerned about this discovery because we want to reduce the

risk of human involvement, " Palmisano said.

Palmisano said St. Louis encephalitis is not new to the Louisiana area.

He said in the 1980s, 30 percent of the blood samples from chickens

tested positive for encephalitis, yet there was not any reported human

cases.

Palmisano said they are especially looking at species such as the Asian

Tiger Mosquito and the Southern House Mosquito and are continuing to try

to capture live mosquitos for more tests.

He said the district set out four more traps on Monday night in a three

mile radius around the area where the infected chicken was located.

Viki , an entomologist with the district said chickens, such as

the one found with the virus, are tested once a week. The chickens are

strategically located in areas that are optimum breeding grounds for the

mosquitos.

Mosquito Control said their mosquito landing count numbers are actually

low right now.

said, however, that individuals may have still had problems with

mosquitos in their own backyards if they have containers, flower pots,

or bird baths where mosquitos like to breed.

Brown and Palmisano said St. Tammany Parish makes excellent research

grounds on the subject because the mosquito problem is so serious.

Sixty thousand acres of marsh surround the parish, which makes the area

an optimum breeding ground. Secondly, the parish also has over 200 miles

of roadside septic ditches and countless woodland locations and open

containers in the community.

" This is basically an urban community surrounded by a marsh, " Palmisano

said.

" Some of the same mosquito species that carry diseases in India, Africa,

and Cuba are the same mosquito species that can be found here, " Brown

said. " But it's due to the efforts of modern mosquito control that

Malaria, Yellow Fever, Encephalitis are not as prevalent anymore. "