Atlanta mosquitoes are swarming; Launch of West Nile virus surveillance

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Mosquitoes are about to make you unhappy.

They were already in the Atlanta metropolitan area, but the peak of the mosquito season has just begun and local efforts to monitor the West Nile virus will soon be the same. The recent episode of heavy rain will make things better and worse: it has exhausted the population of the type of mosquito that can be deadly, but has reinforced the one that is simply annoying.

Pouring stagnant water for the moment – planters, buckets, worn tires and black corrugated plastic pipes – could bring down an imminent baby boom of mosquitoes.

"Be diligent," said Elmer Gray, an entomologist at the Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Georgia. "The conditions are good. The season is upon us and prevention is starting now. "

Rain and hot nights can add to binge eating.

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport received 3.90 inches of rain on Saturday and fewer in recent days, according to Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brian Monahan.

"We saw as much rain Thursday to Monday as we had seen combining the previous six weeks," Monahan said in an e-mail addressed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The deluges can wash mosquito larvae from storm sewers, temporarily hitting populations of the southern house mosquito, a species involved in West Nile virus transmission, according to entomologist Gray. The species, which tends to bite in the morning or evening when the shadows spread, needs periods of dry weather in addition to water for the larvae.

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But the rain also fills the nooks and crannies around homes in Atlanta, which creates more opportunities for Asian tiger mosquito larvae, an aggressive blemisher who can harass his victims all day long. They usually go from egg to adult in about five days.

"The foundation's population is there," Gray said. "They will enjoy the water we had. They will probably build from now on. "

It is still too early to tell if this year will be an exceptional year for Georgia mosquitoes, he said. Until now, this seems pretty typical.

Beginning this week, DeKalb will launch its annual surveillance of mosquitoes that carry the West Nile virus, which insects typically catch in birds.

Thirty-four people in Georgia were confirmed as infected with West Nile virus last year. Most infected people do not feel sick. Others may have symptoms similar to those of the flu. The worst cases, however, can result in paralysis or even death. According to Juanette Willis, Arbovirus infection coordinator of the DeKalb Health Council, two people died last year at DeKalb.

Willis and a group of part-time workers collect thousands of mosquitoes each year, setting up box-shaped traps containing stinking water containers to lure their prey.

Teams will meet at 24 locations each week until October.

They target wet locations in the shade at the edge of woods or areas overgrown with vegetation. The largest cloud of mosquitoes that she had ever seen grew from a corrugated plastic pipe that she had hit.

"If you see that, it stays with you," Willis said.

Captured insects are sorted by species and counted. Many are shipped for testing in a bottle.

Last year, 82 of 468 flasks returned positive for West Nile virus, Willis said.

Some concentrations of infected insects have been found along both sides of Atlanta's Interstate 85 in Gwinnett County, she said. Willis said he suspected this, in part because some neighborhoods have more tree cover, birds and an aging drainage infrastructure that allows water to accumulate.