COLUMBIA TOWNSHIP, Ohio — On a muggy Tuesday afternoon, Hamilton County Public Health Director Jeremy Hessel set up mosquito traps in Columbia Township.
“We like to put the mosquito traps in an area where there’s lots of vegetation, places for the mosquitoes to hang out,” said Hessel.
Part of his job is to collect mosquitoes — especially in the summer.
“We capture the mosquitoes, and we put them in vials and we send them to the state,” said Hessel.
Watch how Hessel and his team collect mosquitoes for testing:
The state will then test the mosquitoes for viruses, including West Nile virus.
I joined Hessel at Columbia Township Compost as he set up mosquito traps.
“So when the mosquitoes come in here to lay their eggs, they get pulled up into this pipe through the fan, and this net is for the mosquitoes to be caught in,” Hessel said as he showed me how the machine worked.
He and his team will leave the traps up for a day or so before taking the nets back to their office and putting them in the freezer, killing the mosquitoes. They then put them in vials to send for testing.
In Hamilton County, the West Nile Virus has been found in Madisonville and Wyoming.
Of those infected with West Nile, only up to 20% may have symptoms such as fever, headaches, nausea, vomiting and possibly a rash.
With such a small population actually getting sick, why is it still important to test mosquitoes for West Nile and other viruses?
“It’s important because we wanna make sure we protect everybody, give everybody education, in the summertime to protect from mosquito bites,” Hessel said. “You know mosquitoes carry viruses that can be deadly.”
According to the Cincinnati Health Department, mosquitoes that could be infected are most active at dusk and dawn; the department says mosquito species that bite during the day are not typically the species known to carry the virus.
To find out more about how to protect yourself from mosquito viruses and who’s most affected, click here.
