Maricopa County Arizona - West Nile Virus Spraying Report

 

Greetings,
Many of you have asked when the spraying for this season will end. The County has not announced when it will end. Their WNv plan does not include criteria as to when spraying would end, so it is literally their call.
The weekly conference calls hosted by MAG with the County's and cities have stopped, even though the spraying has not, thus we apparently will not see any more regular updates on mosquito traps, etc.

The most current information we have from the County is dated October 1:
Environmental Services has fogged over 1 million (1,017,097) acres this season.
May = 2,378 acres
June = 21,961 acres
July = 86,297 acres
August = 356,766 acres
September = 549,695 acres

The County has 32 fogging units (14 trucks and 18 trailers), in addition 5 from the contractors. Fogging operations have been slowing down from about 40,000 acres per night to now less than 10,000 per night. Efforts are being centered in areas where needed, based on the different indicators considered.

Approximately 100 mosquito traps are deployed weekly around the County to evaluate the effectiveness of the spraying and to look for hot spot areas for further applications.

Complaints - The number of complaints showed a big spike this past week, most likely due to the recent storms. This rainy weather condition commonly causes the proliferation of the flood-water mosquitoes and not necessarily
the culex (WNV) mosquitoes. Also, the WNV ads on the paper and the media coverage of the Board of Health Meeting should've contributed in increasing the public's awareness on WNV and their reporting on mosquito-breeding
sites.
----------------------------- END OF COUNTY 10/1/04 REPORT

I am attaching the pdf file that contains Maricopa County director of Public Health Dr. Jonathan Weisbuch's presentation on October 6th to the congressional committee in Washington DC. Please note the slide on page 9 of his presentation (page 10 of the pdf file) entitled "WNv Cases of Onset and Area Receiving Mosquito Control." This likely is the same slide used by Al Brown in his presentation 9/27 to the County Board of Health that so many people found confusing. It appears to indicate that the incidence of WNv was in a definite decline when the fogging began to escalate. In other words, nature was running its course and taking care of it before man interceded with pesticides. Also, each recorded case represented on the bar graph means that the individual was bitten about one month earlier - it takes 10-14 days for symptoms to occur and another perhaps another week or so for the individual to make a doctors appointment and get the test results back.

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If you want to talk about ways to protect schools and children, or things you want to see next year, please send me an email with your name and phone number.

Thanks,
Mary Budinger

Business Results, LLC
Strategic Communication & Business Development
Office: 602-494-1999
Fax: 602-494-2788
Cell: 602-799-6151
4546 E. Cortez Street
Phoenix, AZ 85028
budinger@earthlink.net

Mosquito Site Map