WEST NILE VIRUS Advice: Drain standing water

Old tires, tarpaulins and swimming pools are prime breeding sites.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR HEALTH WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The key to avoiding West Nile virus and other vector-borne diseases is eliminating the standing, stagnant water that mosquitoes, which transmit the diseases to humans and other animals, need for reproduction.
Think beyond the bird bath, Robert Restifo, chief of the vector-borne disease program for the Ohio Department of Health, advises property owners.
Any place that holds water is a potential breeding place for mosquitoes, added George Finnerty, who conducts the Youngstown City Health Department's mosquito control program.
Old foundations, holes in trees, old tires, containers, tarpaulins, plastic, gutters, wading pools and low-lying areas that retain water, and swimming pools that are not maintained are prime breeding sites, Finnerty said.
"You'd be surprised at the number of abandoned pools in the city," Finnerty said.
Finding new spots
Finnerty has been the city's mosquito control specialist for many years and knows most of the swampy low-lying areas, cisterns, and catch basins where mosquitoes breed. But he continually is finding new spots.
Within the last few days, he said, he discovered a stream that he was not aware of running behind about a dozen homes on the city's West Side and he threw a larvicide into it.
He uses Altocid, a product that dissolves over a period of 30 to 150 days, depending on size of the pellet, and is not harmful to humans or other animals. It puts a film on the water that prevents mosquito larvae from breathing and becoming adult mosquitoes.
Finnerty said there are literally hundreds of acres in the city, not including Mill Creek Park, that are wooded and vacant and have low areas that mosquitoes like. He said the city's 2nd and 5th wards have the heaviest concentrations of standing water.
Finnerty said male mosquitoes pollinate but do not bite. It is the female mosquito that bites and spreads disease. When they become adults, they first seek a nectar meal, then they bite a human or other animal to obtain protein needed to lay eggs.
Control program
The larvicide part of the city's mosquito control program is conducted in April, May and June.
When mosquito traps spread around the city in June, July and August attract unusually high numbers of mosquitoes or ones that test positive for West Niles virus, he sprays the area and then sets more traps to determine how successful the spraying was.
Finnerty believes the program is effective, and praised city council for continuing to fund it.
"The lack of complaints tells me what I'm doing does some good," he said.
Other diseases spread by mosquitoes include St. Louis, La Crosse and Easter Equine encephalitis in humans, and heartworm in dogs, Finnerty said.
County official
People need to take personal responsibility for their safety, said Rick Setty, environmental director of the Mahoning County Health Department.
Setty said the county health department does not need to know about single dead birds, but does want residents to let them know if there are major bird die-offs, or if there is a large swamp area that is producing large numbers of mosquitoes.
The county health department does not have a plan for mosquito control, but is in the process of developing a plan for an integrated program in case it becomes necessary.
Setty said two student interns from Youngstown State University's environmental studies program will conduct a countywide mosquito breeding area survey for the department this summer.
alcorn@vindy.com