Asian tiger mosquito a focus of last week's training

Keith Haas demonstrates use of a handheld ULV applicator
for treating adult mosquitoes hiding in dense vegetation.

For which important urban insect pest did 70% of pest control companies get more calls last year? For which pest are 88% of pest management professionals (PMPs) confident that control options are better than they were five years ago?  For what pest do nearly 2/3 of companies have callback rates of 4% or less?

According to a 2017 report by MGK^® Co., the repeated answer is "mosquitoes". It appears that pest control customers increasingly want to fight pesky mosquitoes in their backyards, and are willing to pay for it. 

Ultimately, this increased interest in mosquitoes is what brought 15 interested PMPs to the "Practical Mosquito Control" course last week at IPM Experience House. And, as students learned, the driving force for this demand may just be the tiny Asian tiger mosquito (ATM), Aedes albopictus, and its slightly less common cousin the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti.

A fast and opportunistic biter, tiger mosquitoes are relatively new pests, having arrived from Japan only about 30 years ago. When people complain that, "the mosquitoes are terrible this time of year", chances are they're talking about the day-flying ATM. But ironically, despite it's irritating bite, ATM is not currently a public health threat in most areas.

"The one good thing about ATM", said Scott Sawlis, county entomologist for Dallas County Health and Human Services, "is that it reminds people that they need to wear repellent, and thereby protect themselves from the more dangerous disease-carrying species."  In the Dallas area that would be Culex quinquefasciatus, the stealthier, nighttime-flying, southern house mosquito.  Even though folks don't tend to notice the house mosquito as much, it's the one to carry West Nile virus, our most serious mosquito-borne disease. 

Sawlis and fellow instructors (myself and Dr. Sonja Swiger with Texas A&M AgriLife, and Keith Haas, with Central Life Sciences), spent the day explaining to class attendees about the need for mosquito control, and some of the differences between the target species.  At the end of the day we got to practice what we learned in class by conducting an outdoor inspection and spending some workout time on microscopes looking at these tiniest of pests at a bug eye level. 

During our inspection we discovered mosquitoes breeding (naturally) just a few feet from where class took place.  Afterwards, students got to see fresh-caught mosquito eggs and watch mosquito larvae wriggle through murky breeding media.  Haas demonstrated the ability of a ULV generator to go through and around landscape vegetation, and Sawlis demonstrated proper use of a dipper when trying to determine whether mosquitoes might be breeding in a water source.

Although ATM may be one of the best things to happen to the pest control business in the past few years, it does have a darker side. The ATM is very difficult to control from city spray trucks and even from the air.  And it remains ready to transmit the viruses for Zika and dengue fever, should these diseases arrive in our area like Zika did last summer in Miami, FL and Brownsville, TX.  

One of the most effective tools, our class learned, for fighting tiger mosquitoes is the PMP. While county and city mosquito control staff must patrol streets with sprayers that treat city-blocks at a time (a technique that works well for the house mosquito), only the PMP walks backyards, identifies and treats ground-level breeding sites, and precisely targets sprays to ATM resting sites. This puts the pest control technician in an important role to reduce the most frequent mosquito bites, and to fight Zika and other Aedes-borne illnesses, should they arise here.

If you missed last week's class, and would like to learn more about control of ATM and its biting cousins, several regional training classes will be offered over the next few months.  Stay tuned here for more information.  

Understanding chikungunya

The black and white Asian tiger mosquito is one of the two most common potential vectors of chikungunya nationwide

Fortunately for all of us who live and work in the U.S., insect-borne disease is not rampant in our country. But this isn't something to take for granted either, as we have seen this summer with the rapid spread of the chikungunya (chik-un-GOON-ya) virus throughout the Caribbean.

Over 30 years ago as a graduate student taking a course in medical entomology, I learned about all kinds of diseases spread by insects.  By far, most of these were tropical and exotic-sounding. Chikungunya virus was one of those diseases I memorized way back then, and have since mostly forgotten.

Chikungunya was first described in 1952 during an outbreak in southern Tanzania (east Africa).  The name comes from the Makonde language and means "that which bends up", referring to the contorted, bent-over appearance due to joint pain suffered by those who contract the disease.  Sounds bad, doesn't it?

While not as serious as some mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria or Eastern equine encephalitis, or even the neurological form of West Nile virus, this virus is nothing to sneeze at.  While some people have mild cases, it frequently comes with a very bad headache, joint pain, rash and fever.  There is no treatment for chikungunya, and there is no vaccine to protect you if you go where the disease is active.

When I learned about chikungunya in college, it was found only in eastern Africa and parts of India and Southeast Asia.  That distribution has spread in recent years as outbreaks occurred in parts of western Africa and Europe.  In December 2013 the first epidemic on our side of the world was reported when the disease made the jump into the islands of the Caribbean.  Since the beginning of 2014 the disease has been spreading like wildfire, with more than a quarter million cases, and over 20 fatalities in the Caribbean. 

Chikungunya has been on the radar of U.S. health officials in recent years largely because its vectors are very common in our country.  The principal mosquito vectors of chikungunya are in the genus Aedes. They include the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, and its close relative, the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. These are the species that inevitably bite me whenever I chance a trip outside without repellent in my backyard here in the Dallas area.

Unlike West Nile virus, birds are not a part of the chikungunya disease cycle.  As far as we know, the virus is only viable in mosquitoes and primates.  In Africa, the disease lurks both within humans and non-human primates, such as baboons and monkeys.  For the virus to take hold here in the U.S., it would have to be common enough to reach an epidemic tipping point.  This would occur when enough people were infected to start a cycle from human to mosquito to human again.

We may not have yet reached that tipping point, but we could get there easily.  In July the first locally acquired cases were reported in Florida. These were the first cases where the victims had not recently traveled to the Caribbean, or other places where the disease is endemic. According to the CDC, between 2006 and 2013 the U.S. averaged about 28 cases of chikungunya annually from travelers. In the first six months of 2014 alone there were 243 travel-associated cases in the U.S.  And, according to a July 15 release by the Texas Department of State Health Services, five cases have been reported in Texas so far this summer.

So should you or your customers be worried about chikungunya?  If you plan travel to the Caribbean this year, definitely!  Make sure to carry repellent and use it liberally during your travels to any Caribbean island. At home there is little risk yet; but this could change.  As the number of sick travelers returning from Caribbean cruises and high school missions trips increases, the risk of locally acquired chikungunya will increase.

All of this increases the value and importance of all residential pest control services, especially where Aedes mosquitoes are active. Technicians servicing homes should be on the lookout for any sources of standing water.  These may take the form of storm sewer catchment basins, leaking septic systems, containers or plastic items that catch and hold water, house plant pots with dishes that hold water, bird baths, wheel barrows, boat covers and other items. You may not be servicing your account specifically for mosquitoes, but pointing out mosquito risk factors is an add-on service to your customer and can increase your value in their eyes.

If you have a newsletter or email service to your customers, now's a great time to remind them of the four Ds:

• Drain and dump standing water 
• Dusk and dawn are the highest risk times for mosquitoes (though the Aedes mosquitoes are active all day) 
• Dress in long sleeved shirts and long pants when outdoors 
• DEET is an ingredient to look for in your insect repellent (or another effective choice such as lemon oil of eucalyptus, picaridin, p-menthane 3,8-diol or IR3535). 

For more information about where mosquitoes can breed, and how to identify Aedes and other mosquitoes, see http://mosquitosafari.tamu.edu