SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – Mosquito-control workers are asking automotive retailers to get rid of old tires in the Florida Panhandle, lining up laboratories to test the insects for the Zika virus in New Orleans, and preparing to hunt down and destroy mosquito breeding sites in neighborhoods of infected people in coastal Georgia.
These are among the advance steps that the heads of mosquito control agencies in U.S. cities and counties say they are taking to combat the Zika virus ahead of the typical springtime breeding season. They’re among hundreds of municipal workers and insect researchers from around the nation attending the American Mosquito Control Association’s annual conference, which opened Monday in Savannah.
Mosquitoes that spread the Zika virus are tough to fight because they breed close to people’s homes: in the standing water of outside flower pots and dog bowls, and sometimes even in tub drains or other wet spots inside.
That makes them hard to target with conventional larvacide and insecticide sprays, said Mark Cothran, mosquito control director for Gulf County, Florida.
“You’re not going to find them in roadside ditches or in swamps,” Cothran said. “You’re going to find them in dog food bowls or in 5-gallon buckets. It almost requires going door-to-door to dump out containers.”