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Editor, Senior Moderator
How far north is the Zika-spreading mosquito?
By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
Updated 7:56 AM ET, Wed March 2, 2016
(CNN) In fall 2012, mosquito biologist Andy Lima received a call from an old college friend desperate for help. His Washington apartment had become infested. Could Lima come over?
...
When he cupped one of the bugs in his hands, he noticed it didn't have the characteristic albopictus white stripe down its back. Instead, the stripes were in a violin shape.
That's the telltale sign of Aedes aegypti, the tropical bug responsible for spreading diseases like yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya -- and Zika virus.
But this was Washington, D.C., in October...
...
Were the mosquitoes dying each winter -- as one would expect with a tropical bug -- and a new batch arriving from tropical climates each year? Or was it all the same family of bugs that had somehow managed to survive a Washington winter?
Lima couldn't answer that question on his own, so he sought out David Severson at the University of Notre Dame, whose lab specializes in mosquito genetics.
Severson found that Lima's collection of mosquitoes shared the same genes. This indicated the bugs were surviving the winter and breeding, perhaps by going to underground areas, like Metro subway stations.
...
"The maps are incomplete," added Dr. Stephen Waterman, director of the dengue branch at the CDC. "There aren't enough mosquito control agencies in the United States doing thorough and comprehensive surveillance, so the maps have holes."
Holes, he said, aren't good when you're trying to track down and kill an incredibly resilient -- and incredibly harmful -- type of mosquito.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/health/zika-mosquito-aedes-aegypti-map-colder-climates/
By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
Updated 7:56 AM ET, Wed March 2, 2016
(CNN) In fall 2012, mosquito biologist Andy Lima received a call from an old college friend desperate for help. His Washington apartment had become infested. Could Lima come over?
...
When he cupped one of the bugs in his hands, he noticed it didn't have the characteristic albopictus white stripe down its back. Instead, the stripes were in a violin shape.
That's the telltale sign of Aedes aegypti, the tropical bug responsible for spreading diseases like yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya -- and Zika virus.
But this was Washington, D.C., in October...
...
Were the mosquitoes dying each winter -- as one would expect with a tropical bug -- and a new batch arriving from tropical climates each year? Or was it all the same family of bugs that had somehow managed to survive a Washington winter?
Lima couldn't answer that question on his own, so he sought out David Severson at the University of Notre Dame, whose lab specializes in mosquito genetics.
Severson found that Lima's collection of mosquitoes shared the same genes. This indicated the bugs were surviving the winter and breeding, perhaps by going to underground areas, like Metro subway stations.
...
"The maps are incomplete," added Dr. Stephen Waterman, director of the dengue branch at the CDC. "There aren't enough mosquito control agencies in the United States doing thorough and comprehensive surveillance, so the maps have holes."
Holes, he said, aren't good when you're trying to track down and kill an incredibly resilient -- and incredibly harmful -- type of mosquito.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/health/zika-mosquito-aedes-aegypti-map-colder-climates/