The second of two KEN (knowledge, education, and news) Talks April 19 cautioned students in Lillard Hall about the growing spread of mosquito viruses.
“These mosquitoes will be most active in the warmer months,” said Wright, in his presentation in the Science and Allied Health department series. “Eventually the conditions will be just right for them to be everywhere.”
Wright said that mosquitoes carrying common viruses originated in Africa, specifically Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique. But because of increasing warm weather. mosquitoes have been able to migrate to several more countries and infect more people.
The Zika virus, Wright said, originated in Brazil, but has now spread to South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. West Nile was the least of Wright’s worries because he said 80 percent of people who became infected with the virus rarely show symptoms and don’t even know they have been bitten. Dengue and Zika, on the other hand, are a bit more dangerous.
“I’m really afraid of dengue,” Wright said. “So if that came up here [in California] that would be just shocking and frightening. I would be really nervous about that,” Wright said.
As of yet, there is no cure for any of these diseases, according to Wright. If a person gets bitten and infected, symptoms will last about a week. When bitten, a person may experience a high fever, rashes, nausea, muscle and joint pain and some bleeding. Wright stated that it is uncommon for these side effects to become life-threatening, but strongly urges people to take precautions.
Wright lectured on five different types of viruses obtained from mosquitoes. He explained where these viruses come from and how one could possibly become infected from a single mosquito bite.
Wright used slides that described the location of certain mosquitoes and the organisms they normally bite, like birds, rodents and humans. The five different types of viruses carried by the Aedes aegypti and albopictus mosquitoes include dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Zika, and chikungunya, according to Wright.
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“When you become infected, your immune system becomes kind of crazy,” said Wright. “What can be really dangerous is that your body is basically hemorrhaging from the inside and you can go into shock.”
One way to suppress mosquitoes is getting rid of containers and garbage around your home that can hold water, Wright said. Mosquitoes can reproduce their larvae in these places.
“Mosquitoes can go through their larvae life cycle in very small containers,” Wright said. “If you look through your yard and find any container that’s holding water–like a dog bowl, a bird bath, or even a bottle– is enough to hold water after rain and can produce larvae. The earlier we detect their presence the better chance we have of suppressing their numbers before they begin to take off and get started. ”
Wright said that he chose to discuss mosquito viruses as the topic for the KEN Talks in Lillard Hall this week since the Zika virus has received recent attention in the news. He stated that Zika has generated a lot of fear among people, so he wanted people to understand the risks this virus can cause and how to protect themselves against mosquitoes during the day.
“Wear insect repellent, avoid being bitten to the best of your ability, and then just pay attention to your own symptoms,” Wright said. “If you have a fever make sure when you visit your doctor say, ‘Hey I’ve been traveling to areas where Zika and chikungunya are occurring and I feel a little off.’”
Some students, like biology major Megan Ong, said they were generally interested in the subject and thought the idea of potentially getting a disease from these mosquitoes was very scary.
“The speech was very informative,” Ong said. “I’m learning a lot about these viruses because I care about them, and I was unfamiliar who the vectors are and how it’s reaching the populations,” Ong said. “It would be a concern for me going overseas. I didn’t carry bug spray, but I do now.”
Nutrition major Michelle Nunez thought others should learn this information as well, especially if they plan on traveling overseas for summer break.
“I’m going to see the speech because it’s a really scary disease that is going on right now, especially since summer is here. I really think that is important,” Nunez said. Not only is this disease so contagious and so dangerous, there isn’t a cure for it. So I think that it’s really nice to know about this information.”