The local health unit is on schedule to continue its West Nile virus prevention program for the 14th consecutive year.
Board members at the June 1 Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health meeting heard the health unit is ready to treat more than 22,000 roadside catch basins and 115 non-roadside catch basins with larvicide.
Medical officer of health and CEO Dr. Nicola Mercer said the health unit also tests mosquitoes for the disease.
“I think you might be surprised that almost 10,000 mosquitoes were submitted for analysis in the health unit last year … and we had no mosquitoes … with West Nile virus last year and no human cases,” she said.
“That may not be the case this year, but the process will run out in exactly the same way: continue to encourage people to protect themselves in the event that this year is another year that we have West Nile activity.”
Mercer explained weather and temperature have an impact on whether West Nile will be present in mosquitoes, but that’s not something that can be determined in advance.
Board member Ken McGhee asked whether the health unit worked with municipal partners to know where wet spots are in municipalities.
Manager of health protection Shawn Zentner said the health unit annually sends out a letter of permission to apply the larvicide.
“We get a contact name and we get in contact with all of the appropriate staff because the actual larvicide in the catch basin is putting a pellet down a natural catch basin,” he said. “We need to know that you guys or whoever’s responsible isn’t cleaning the catch basin the next day. That’s one of the most important reasons for coordinate.”
Zentner added the health unit investigates complaints about standing water and tests it to see what type of larvae is present.
“If they’re the right kind of mosquito’s larvae, and a lot of them, then we will treat it and add it to the list,” he said.
“So there’s a lot of coordination on that at the beginning of the season before it even starts.”
Board vice-chair Nancy Sullivan said that it’s the zika virus that is in the News right now and people are worried about it coming to Canada.
She asked if there is someone testing mosquitoes within the health unit to track zika.
“We don’t have the mosquito species in Canada that can carry the zika virus,” Mercer said. “So whether the zika virus is able to be sustained in another mosquito species I think that is still a little bit up in the air.”
She added, “just to be very clear, there is absolutely no doubt that zika will spread through the vast majority of the U.S. because they do carry that mosquito population so it’s very likely that large portions of the U.S. and all the southern states will have zika in the not-too-distant future because they have exactly the same mosquito species.”
Zentner explained that it’s the ministry of health that tells the health units what mosquito species to look for – and the mosquitoes that carry zika is not yet on the list.
