Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts

Monday, June 4, 2012

Attack of the Urban Mosquitoes


Tiger Mosquito, Aedes Albopictus  image from wikipedia

Attack of the Urban Mosquitoes, Aggressive and Hard to Kill: Two Asian Cityslickers Swarm the East Coast.

This article from the Wall Street Journel is from 2011, but it is still timely and very informative. The two types of mosquitos discussed are both from Asia - the tiger mosquito and the rockpool mosquito.

Mosquitos with their insidious buzzing and the often resulting bites are bad enough to deal with. Details of the article state that these insects can also be disease carriers.
"The Asian tiger was responsible for transmitting more than 200 cases of dengue fever, a sometimes-fatal viral infection, in Hawaii in 2001-02. A similar (but less lethal) virus called chikungunya was transmitted in France and Italy, but no cases have been cited in the U.S. from the Asian tiger. Likewise, the rock pool mosquito is capable of transmitting the West Nile virus, but no cases have been traced to the species in the U.S., Dr. Fonseca says."

Another Insect Borne Disease - Chagas

According to an article in the New York Times by Donald McNeil, published on May 28, 2012, Chagas disease is "the new AIDS of the Americas". The source of this information is an editorial, Chagas Disease: “The New HIV/AIDS of the Americas”, on PLoS (Public Library of Science) website.

I am not trying to be alarmist, just wanting to be informed of possibilities.