United States: As fall arrives and this recent weather gets cooler, mosquito season is coming to an end. This year, there were some cases of this West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis, but the good news is that mosquitoes literally prefer to bite birds instead of people, which keeps these diseases rare.
However, with the planet getting warmer, mosquito season might last longer, and some types of mosquitoes that like to bite humans are moving north. So, it’s important to stay aware and protect ourselves!
According to the CDC, this year there have only been 880 cases of West Nile Virus in the whole of the United States, the most prevalent of all vectors borne diseases within the continental United States and only thirteen incidents of EEE borough across seven states.
That rarity is a good thing because both can come to a deadly end.
As reported by the Harvard Gazette, while around 80% of infections cause no or minimal symptoms, one percent may result in severe neurological illnesses, and of those, 10 percent may ultimately be fatal, as explained by the CDC. The numbers are grimmer for EEE with average most of people experiencing severe illness with 30% of cases ending in death annually. Of the seven known cases this year, seven ended in death.
Increased heat that comes with autumn has started to decrease the outbreak of EEE. On the 4th of October, Massachusetts public health officials eased EEE risk warnings in the worst affected areas of the state from crimson to peach. The threats for West Nile did not change — high or moderate over significant areas of the state — and DHEC experts acknowledge that cooler weather does not halt the spread of the virus. They remain chrysalis until they are frost killed and that has been later in recent years.
However, present research has expected that global warming might increase the length of the mosquito season in the United States by up two months by 2050 because of longer autumns and earlier springs.
Those months are thought to be warmer and hammier, thereby offering a better breeding ground for mosquitoes in the form of permanent water pools. It also has more days, which are gestational cycles, so more biting by these female mosquitoes, who need to feed on blood before laying eggs.
Also you have more bites and more the areas where they’re able to live and more months when they’re active and more the places for them to breed and that means larger populations,” said the Matthew Phillips a research fellow in the infectious diseases at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.
“All of this is expected based jus ton the changes in the climate which ultimately affects the mosquitoes.”
Evidence or the proofs of the trends has already been seen Phillips said and in the year 2021 during one of the hottest Decembers on the record the CDC recorded 30 cases of the West Nile virus and even at the MGH in the chilly Boston the trend has been the proof of the albeit with the disease spread by the hardier insect vectors.
“We are seeing the cases of the anaplasmosis and the babesiosis disease that are spread basically ticks and can be potentially pretty serious,” Phillips said and typically you’d see them in the summertime, but we were seeing those in the middle of the winter.