Phil Goodman, District 2 commissioner and chair of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about how we’re doing with mosquitos.
Crews have been working heavily following high tides and scattered rainfall that produced mosquito larvae throughout the Keys.
“We’ve really caught the numbers up right now,” Goodman said. “Last night we only had one truck mission in the Keys, and so things are really looking good.”
Winds are expected to shift to a more westerly direction in the coming days, potentially bringing additional mosquitoes from the Everglades and protected lands into the Upper Keys. Mosquito control plans to focus on the Upper Keys next week to keep mosquito numbers under control.
Both salt marsh mosquitoes and Aedes aegypti, the species associated with diseases including dengue fever, are currently at low levels.
The Wolbachia trial targeting Aedes aegypti in the Middle Keys is continuing. The program began releasing Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes twice a week in April and is scheduled to continue through October.
The trial includes three 20-acre treatment areas and three 20-acre control areas. Crews are collecting mosquito counts and other data throughout the trial, with officials expecting to have enough information to evaluate the program by late October or November.
There are two types of Wolbachia mosquito-control programs.
The Florida Keys program uses what Goodman described as “suppression Wolbachia.” Only male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia are released. When those males mate with wild female Aedes aegypti, the resulting eggs do not produce viable offspring, reducing the mosquito population.
A different approach, known as “replacement Wolbachia,” releases both male and female mosquitoes carrying the bacteria. The offspring survive and continue carrying Wolbachia, which can prevent mosquitoes from transmitting certain diseases.
The replacement approach is used in some developing countries but is not approved for use in the United States because it involves releasing biting female mosquitoes and does not necessarily reduce the overall mosquito population.
Brazil and other parts of Central and South America have mosquito-borne illnesses such as dengue that remain a significant public health concern.
“In these countries, it’s more important to control the disease than it is to control the biting,” Goodman said.
The suppression approach used in the Keys is more expensive because male mosquitoes must be separated from females before release. The goal is both to reduce mosquito-borne disease and reduce the number of biting mosquitoes.
Despite mosquito-borne disease activity elsewhere in Florida, there have been no cases of local mosquito-borne disease transmission in the Florida Keys this year.
Roughly half of Florida’s counties currently have some type of mosquito-borne disease activity. Hillsborough and Miami-Dade counties are under mosquito-borne disease alerts from the Florida Department of Health, with cases involving illnesses including dengue, West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis and travel-related malaria.
Mosquito control plays an important role in preventing isolated cases from developing into widespread outbreaks.
“We can’t eliminate all of the mosquitoes, but we keep the numbers down,” Goodman said. “The chances of local transmission on a broad scale is very, very much reduced.”
Mosquito Control District will hold its monthly meeting Wednesday and conduct its final budget workshop. It’s is proposing a rollback budget for the coming fiscal year, which would keep the tax rate at the same level as last year.
Mosquito control has maintained rollback budgets for the past three years and credited technology with helping control costs.
“I think we’re doing a really good job using technology to keep our costs down,” Goodman said.