Two invasive species of mosquitoes that will carry Zika, dengue, yellow jack and different dangerous viruses area unit spreading in Calif. and are found as so much north as the state capital and Placer counties.
There are now 16 counties where Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, has been detected, according to the state Department of Public Health. Five of those counties have also detected Aedes albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito.
These mosquitoes, distinguished from other species because they primarily sip human blood during the day instead of at night, can spread the Zika virus, which infected more than 1 million individuals throughout a virus that began in 2015 in Brazil. The virus also can spread during sex. More than three,000 babies were born with microcephaly in Brazil during the epidemic.
Microcephaly could be a condition within which a baby’s head is way smaller than expected, and can occur because the baby’s brain has not developed properly.
In Calif., these invasive mosquitoes were detected in 2011 in Los Angeles County, and since have spread northward into the Central Valley.
But the potential for in-state transmission remains. The number of reportable travel-associated cases of Zika has born from 509 in 2015 and 2016 combined to twenty-five up to now this year, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Public health officers work with those who were infected overseas to reduce the danger that they’re going to unfold the virus within the state. While state and native vector management agencies keep an in-depth eye on these species of genus Aedes mosquitoes, their biggest concerns are still West Nile virus and St. Louis rubor, that area unit unfold by completely different species of mosquitoes, more common in California.
This year, there are eighty-nine human cases of West Nile virus reportable in fifteen counties, including two deaths, the department said.
Vector management officers conjointly stress the requirement for public awareness regarding however Californians will shield themselves and stop mosquitoes from proliferating. “It’s easy for individuals to form a number of changes to their fashion that might limit the unfold of those mosquitoes,” Wittie aforementioned.
Wittie recommends individuals check their properties weekly and drain any standing water to limit the places wherever mosquitoes will reproduce. Though these mosquitoes can travel only short distances on their own, they can be transported via international and local trade, or even in a car.
