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Western Colorado braces for West Nile season
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP)--West Nile season is approaching--and Mesa County is busily preparing.
Last week, 10 tons of granular larvicide were unloaded in the county. The pellets are designed to kill immature mosquitoes in the water.
The county is also stockpiling more than 30,000 larvicide briquettes for use in storm sewers and detention ponds to attack the insects, which carry the disease.
Colorado led the nation last summer in deaths from West Nile--61. Another 2,947 people became ill, with most of the cases concentrated in northern Colorado.
This year, health officials expect the disease to hit harder west of the Continental Divide. Areas like Mesa County and the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado could be especially vulnerable because of all the irrigation, providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
"We're putting on a major West Nile virus attack this summer," said Steve DeFeyter, director of environmental health at the Mesa County Health Department.
The county has doubled its number of mosquito traps and quadrupled spending on mosquito surveillance and control. The county plans to spend $160,000 on traps, control efforts and follow-up interviews with West Nile victims, up from about $40,000 last year.
Mesa County recorded 19 West Nile cases and two deaths last year. DeFeyter said he wouldn't be surprised to see 10 times as many human cases this year.
"I think we're ripe, for all the ecological and biological reasons, to be impacted by West Nile," DeFeyter said.
Date: 4/7/04
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