Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class William Phillips | A female Aedes aegypti mosquito while she was in the process of acquiring a blood meal...... read more read more
Summer ushers in longer days, sweltering heat and family vacations. It also delivers pests, specifically mosquitoes.
Along with them, mosquitos bring diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, Zika and West Nile virus (WNV). That is why it’s extraordinarily important for service members to do their part in helping to prevent mosquitos from even being born.
“Mosquitoes don’t need very much water to breed in,” said Army Maj. Janeen Mathies, Chief of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s Environmental Health. “If left alone long enough, even something as small as a soda bottle cap can be a breeding site for mosquitos.”
There are some places that people might not think to look that could contribute to the cultivation of more and more mosquitoes.
“Tires [that aren’t in use], are a prime breeding spot,” said Mathies.
Tarps are another place that mosquitoes may breed.
“If you have a tarp over a woodpile in your backyard and it rains and that water sits in little places on your tarp; that is another place where mosquitoes could breed,” said Mathies.
Naval Support Activity Bethesda (NSAB) is doing its part to help prevent mosquitoes from appearing.
“Our environmental health experts go and investigate; we do surveys of any potential breeding sites, we try to find areas that may have standing water, may have active larvae or fly infestation and then we do preventive measures,” said Ron Kunz, NSAB’s installation emergency manager. “NSAB is laying down larvacide that will sit and kill any larva that is in that area.”
According to Kunz, NSAB is cutting down the brush and vegetation and are cleaning drains that are prime areas for standing water, which enables mosquitoes to grow.
It is impossible to kill all the mosquitoes, but there are ways to help keep you and your family safe when it comes to being bitten and contracting diseases.
“If you are going to be outside, wearing long sleeves and long pants can go a long way in preventing mosquito bites,” said Mathies. “You want to wear insect repellent. The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommends using products with DEET, picaridin, IR3535, and some oil of lemon eucalyptus and para-menthane-diol.”
Mosquitoes can even bite when you are not outside.
“If you don’t have air conditioning, you want to make sure your screens are all intact,” said Mathies.
According to Mathies it is important for service members to protect themselves from mosquito bites because no matter what NSAB is doing to protect its service members onboard, mosquitoes can still bite you when you go somewhere in town.
For more information about mosquitos and how to prevent them, visit http://www.cdc.gov/Features/stopmosquitoes/index.htm.
| Date Taken: | 08.04.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.05.2016 08:43 |
| Story ID: | 206167 |
| Location: | BETHESDA, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 184 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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