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Dave Geske, a mosquito control expert for the La Crosse County Health Department, said he and his staff will check areas near Fort McCoy in Monroe County to see whether Aedes japonicus, an Asian species, has spread in the region.
Geske, who monitors mosquitoes in 17 southwestern Wisconsin counties, said the federal government found the mosquito two years ago at Fort McCoy and other military training centers. The mosquito likely was brought back to the U.S. on military equipment that had been used overseas, he said.
While federal officials didn’t find a large number of the Asian mosquitoes, a federal eradication program was put in place, Geske said.
But that program was cut last year, he said, shifting the responsibility to local staff.
“We want to make sure that mosquito doesn’t make a home here,” Geske said. “We want to eliminate any populations because this mosquito is more aggressive, flies farther and doesn’t need another disease vector.”
Geske said staff also will be looking for Aedes albopictus, another Asian mosquito, in Grant and Lafayette counties in southwestern Wisconsin. The mosquito, which causes many deaths in some parts of the world, has turned up in the Chicago and Twin Cities areas, he said.
“I’m very concerned about this mosquito because it’s very aggressive and causes dengue in parts of Asia, and we want to make sure it doesn’t take hold around here,” Geske said. “It’s a major mosquito in the South.”
He said the mosquito probably was introduced in Hawaii late in the last century, but wasn’t discovered in the continental U.S. until 1985 in Houston, Texas. Geske said the mosquito could have come in with imported tires.
Aedes japonicus first was detected in the U.S. in New York and New Jersey in 1998. “This mosquito is now firmly established in Michigan,” Geske said. “We don’t want that mosquito here, either.”
Geske said diseases such as Lyme and La Crosse encephalitis will pale in comparison to the kinds of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases the U.S. could encounter in the future.
“We’re so mobile, and with the climactic changes, the warmer weather and different species, there is the potential for diseases we have never thought of,” Geske said.
“In the next 10 to 20 years, I think we’ll see these diseases will be more of a threat to public health,” he said.
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8227.
