Dr. Peter Hotez – “..a new normal for us during this time of climate change.”
Beach season may be over, but mosquito season isn’t.
Peak time for mosquito-transmitted diseases is typically late August and early September. Warmer temperatures into the fall keep the pests around for longer before the first hard frost kills them off, usually around Halloween in the Northeast. The heat can also make mosquitoes more infectious.
This year’s crop of worries includes West Nile virus and the potentially deadly eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE, along with dengue spreading from Puerto Rico to Southern states.
So far in the U.S. this year, 26 people have died from West Nile and at least one from EEE, according to preliminary data through early September from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Public-health officials and experts note that serious health complications and deaths from either virus are rare; most people have no symptoms or mild ones. Steps you can take to protect yourself include staying inside at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are especially active, and wearing insect repellent.
Vector-borne diseases—those transmitted by blood-feeding creatures like mosquitoes and ticks—are “among the fastest-growing group of diseases right now on the planet,” says Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of CDC’s division of vector-borne diseases.
Climate change and rising temperatures are one reason, says Petersen. And it isn’t just because the first frost might come later. “When the temperature is warmer, the virus multiplies faster in a mosquito and it multiplies in higher numbers,” he says. “So mosquitoes become infectious faster—and more infectious.”
Vector-borne diseases—those transmitted by blood-feeding creatures like mosquitoes and ticks—are “among the fastest-growing group of diseases right now on the planet,” says Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of CDC’s division of vector-borne diseases.
Climate change and rising temperatures are one reason, says Petersen. And it isn’t just because the first frost might come later. “When the temperature is warmer, the virus multiplies faster in a mosquito and it multiplies in higher numbers,” he says. “So mosquitoes become infectious faster—and more infectious.”
In the U.S., West Nile has been reported across the country, with more than 375 cases reported so far, according to the most recent CDC data, including 255 that are neuroinvasive, meaning the virus entered the central nervous system.
So far this year, there have been six EEE cases reported, but the virus has been detected at higher-than-normal levels in tested mosquitoes, mainly in the Northeast, says Laura Harrington, a professor of entomology at Cornell University who studies human- and animal-mosquito interactions.
Meanwhile, a dengue outbreak in South America and the Caribbean is spilling over into Florida and elsewhere.
Mosquitoes are attracted to odors and the carbon dioxide we breathe out, says Stephen Rich, professor of microbiology and director of the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases at University of Massachusetts Amherst. It is unclear if they are more attracted to certain people, but people’s sensitivity to the bites can vary.
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How to protect yourself
Avoid the outdoors during dawn and dusk, and apply insect repellent with DEET or picaridin, experts suggest. Wearing long sleeves, pants and socks is also a good idea.
If you work outside often, you can treat clothes with permethrin, which kills ticks and mosquitoes. Make sure to use an insect repellent registered with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Regularly draining standing water in your yard, installing screens on your windows and doors, and using air conditioning rather than opening windows are other strategies that can help.
For those who didn’t grow up in mosquito-land: Mosquitos prefer isolated patches of water because moving water is more likely to contain little fish or other critters that eat the larvae. A bottlecap can hold enough water to breed mosquitos.