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Ever since the West Nile virus scare, people have been paying more attention to mosquitoes, the tiny, bloodsucking pests that are so easy to ignore – that is, until you have an unsightly bump that requires constant itching or an application of calamine lotion. Still, there are plenty of people who have never even heard of mosquito control efforts, or about the extent of damage that the pests, armed with the right kinds of viruses and bacteria, can do to an entire community. Mosquito control efforts curb the potential threat that the winged bloodsuckers could cause in the United States, but sadly, that is not the case in other places around the world. Mosquito Control Awareness Week, which is from June 22 to June 28 in 2008, aims to increase public knowledge regarding mosquitoes and mosquito control efforts that every family can undertake.

The word “mosquito” is originally a Spanish word dating back to the early 15th century. If you take the Spanish word for “fly”, the insect, and add the suffix that makes it a diminutive, you are left with something close to the modern-day English word. As insects that undergo complete metamorphosis, they begin life as an egg, hatch to become larvae, growing larger and becoming pupae, and then finally completing the metamorphosis into an adult. This whole process takes about two weeks, but different species and climate conditions can extend or shorten this length of time. From birth to becoming and adult, mosquitoes live in stagnant pools of water, and they cannot breed otherwise. Adult mosquitoes are not strong fliers, and a strong wind can totally relocate them if one arises, and they tend to live in cool, grassy areas, or near water puddles.

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As far as the bloodsucking part, only female mosquitoes actually collect blood from mammals. This is because the blood is required for them to produce their eggs. Males and females alike feed on nectar from flowers otherwise. Since females need protein in order to develop their eggs, and nectar has no protein, they must acquire the nutrient from the blood of mammals. They track their unwilling blood donors by scent, able to detect certain elements in carbon dioxide exhalations, sweat, and other types of bodily odor. According to popular belief, they can detect these scents from almost one hundred feet away. Mosquitoes can also detect heat, which allows them to home in on warm-blooded animals once they are within range. Some mammals are less prone to mosquito bites because of the scents they give off. This applies to humans, too, which explains why some people seem to be more desirable to mosquitoes than others.

So far, the idea of mosquitoes sucking blood from us does not seem completely unwarranted. After all, they are only trying to reproduce, and nature has provided them with only one method of acquiring the necessary nutrients to give birth to their offspring. The fact of the matter is that mosquitoes also act as disease carriers, transferring diseases from one group of mammals to another without actually catching the disease themselves. This is the root of the mosquito’s danger. When a mosquito bites, it also injects saliva and a certain substance to make the blood thinner to allow for easier feeding. These may contain disease-causing viruses and parasites that are immensely dangerous to humans.

Because of the vast numbers of mosquitoes that exist in certain places and their absolute singularity of mind when it comes to acquiring blood from mammals, mosquitoes are responsible for transmitting over 700 million diseases annually, resulting in millions of deaths across the world. These are mostly focused in Africa, South America, Central America, Mexico, and many parts of Asia; in other, more developed areas, mosquito bites are mostly a nuisance, but they can still cause deaths under certain circumstances. The first of such diseases to be associated with the insects were yellow fever and malaria, which were common killers during the efforts of creating the Panama Canal. Workers were constantly catching the diseases and there were several attempts to discover the reason until mosquitoes were finally identified as the culprits.

Because of all this, Mosquito Control Awareness Week is very important in order for people to realize the potential threat that mosquitoes pose, both in our country and around the world. When the West Nile virus was accidentally introduced to the United States in 1999, and especially by 2003 when it had spread to almost every state, there came about a bigger national emphasis on the winged pests that, in recent times, had been seen as a nuisance and nothing more. The aim of the week is to have people pursue the necessary means to reduce backyard mosquito populations and stagnant water puddles in order to curb the population of mosquitoes that may carry harmful parasites.

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According to experts in the field, the most effective way to go about this is to deal directly with stagnant water because it takes away the major breeding ground for mosquitoes. If they cannot breed, then the amount of mosquitoes goes down, and with that, the chance that someone is targeted by a dangerous mosquito. There are also many other ways to reduce the chance to get infected with something like West Nile Virus. These include: avoiding outdoor activity during dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most likely to be feeding; wearing light clothing, long sleeves, and hats when outdoors; using U.S. EPA-registered mosquito repellents; vaccinating horses, mules, and donkeys; removing standing water from flower pots, trash receptacles, and other areas where it can pool; flushing pet food bowls and bird baths regularly; and reporting large areas of standing water to a mosquito control office in your area.

Organized mosquito control efforts exist in order to supplement the individual efforts that anybody can undertake in order to reduce the population of harmful mosquitoes. Their first step is to remove the breeding habitat, so that during their further efforts, they only have to deal with the mosquitoes that have already been adults. Then they modify the habitat so that it is less conducive to their breeding environment, removing standing water receptacles and, on a large scale, adding drainage to spots that tend to collect water. Sometimes, natural predators of mosquitoes are introduced into the habitat, as appropriate, in order to aid in the population reduction. Pesticides are then used to reduce larval and adult populations. This all-encompassing effort provides the maximum amount of coverage, creating the best situation for total mosquito removal.

Unfortunately, no matter what efforts we take in our backyard to curb the mosquito populations, there is not much we can do for the millions of people that suffer from mosquitoes transferring deadly diseases to themselves and their children. As part of Mosquito Control Awareness Week, you can also look on the Internet for reputable charities that aid these parts of the world in their efforts to reduce mosquito-related deaths. For example, www.projectmosquitonet.org donates insecticide-treated bed nets to children and pregnant mothers in Kenya. Although it seems simple, the effect that bed nets have on reducing the danger for those who use them is profound, potentially stopping millions of deaths. Your donation has a hand in distributing these mosquito nets, something which Mosquito Control Awareness Week, dedicated to raising awareness of these winged pests, should surely be recommending.

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