Updates

East Asian Tick Discovered in New Jersey

by

(TRENTON) – New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher today announced the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa has confirmed the finding of an exotic East Asian tick, also known as the longhorned tick or bush tick, on a farm in Hunterdon County on November 9. Initial identification was made by the Monmouth County Tick-borne Diseases Lab, located at Rutgers University and the Hunterdon County Division of Health. This tick is not known to be present in the U.S., although there are records of at least a dozen previous collections of this species in the country on animals and materials presented for entry at U.S. ports.

Click to read full article at NJ.Gov

Photo Credit: NJ.Gov

Ohio Arbovirus Report for September 1st 2017

by

Click for printable PDF of report –>  Summary table – 9 1 17-pc8ucs

 

West Nile virus and other domestic arboviral activity — United States, 2017
Provisional data reported to ArboNET
Tuesday, August 29, 2017

This update from the CDC Arboviral Disease Branch includes provisional data reported to ArboNET for January 1 – August 29, 2017 for West Nile virus and selected other nationally notifiable domestic arboviruses. Additional resources for ArboNET and arboviral diseases are provided on page 9.
West Nile virus (WNV) activity in 2017
As of August 29th, 740 counties from 45 states and the District of Columbia have reported WNV activity to ArboNET for 2017, including 35 states with reported WNV human infections (i.e., disease cases or viremic blood donors) and 10 additional states and the District of Columbia with reported WNV activity in non-human species only (i.e., veterinary cases, mosquito pools, dead birds, or sentinel animals)

Click HERE for full West Nile Virus Report –> 2017-08-29 Arboviral activity update-xa8qnu

 

All reports courtesy of the Ohio Department of Health

Zika Virus May be Useful in Treating Brain Tumors

by

Source: US National Library of Medicine 9/7/2017

 

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 05:33:00 EST

 

“Zika virus used to treat aggressive brain cancer,” BBC News reports. Animal and laboratory research suggests a modified version of the virus could possibly be used to target and destroy cancerous cells.

The Zika virus was first discovered in 1947. It hit the headlines in 2016 when an epidemic of the virus began quickly spreading through parts of South and Central America.

The virus, spread by mosquitoes, rarely causes serious problems in adults. But it can lead to birth defects, specifically microcephaly (a small, not fully developed head), if a woman contracts the virus when pregnant.

The virus has the ability to cross from the blood into the brain, so researchers wanted to see if it could be used to treat a very aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

Click HERE to read full article

 

New Mosquito Attractant/Pesticide combination in testing

by

Excerpted from American Chemical Society newsletter August 23rd, 2017

“Conventional chemical insecticides used to control mosquitoes are used as cover sprays, frequently dispersed over wide areas. But this blanket spray approach exposes people and animals to potentially harmful compounds and can kill bees and other beneficial insects. In addition, residues of these sprays can contaminate soils and streams, as well as promote increased pesticide resistance. To overcome these issues, Mafra-Neto of ISCA Technologies and colleagues at several universities sought to create a more targeted approach using an insecticide potion spiked with a blend of semiochemicals, or chemical signals, that mosquitoes can’t resist.”

 

“The blend of chemicals that we use to attract mosquitoes is so powerful that they will ignore natural plant odors and attractants in order to get to our formulation,” says Agenor Mafra-Neto, Ph.D. “From a mosquito’s point of view, it’s like having an irresistible chocolate shop on every corner. The product is so seductive that they will feed on it almost exclusively, even when it contains lethal doses of insecticide.”

 

The resulting product, which is called Vectrax®, is a slow-release formula for use indoors or outdoors. It can be applied as a spray, which produces 1- to 5-millimeter dollops on vegetation or building eaves, or as a semi-solid, caulk-like gel on cracks or holes in outdoor structures. Because the mosquitoes visit and manipulate the dollops, they receive precise doses of the insecticide, and thus are more effectively controlled. Unlike with traditional blanket sprays, nearby surfaces can remain insecticide free.

The researchers are conducting field tests in Tanzania, an African nation where 93 percent of the population is at risk for malaria. In preliminary results, they found that mosquito populations plunged by two-thirds in just two weeks in Vetrax-treated communities compared to untreated ones.

 

CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE ON ACS

 

Debug Fresno Aims to Eliminate Aedes Mosquitos

by

From NPR July 21st, 2017:

“This summer, scientists in California are releasing 20 million mosquitoes in an effort to shrink the population of mosquitoes that can carry diseases.

It sounds counterintuitive. But the plan is to release millions of sterile male mosquitoes, which will then mate with wild female mosquitoes. The eggs the females lay won’t hatch, researchers say.

The project is called Debug Fresno and it’s being undertaken by Verily, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s holding company. It’s the company’s first field study involving sterile mosquitoes in the U.S.

Scientists say the goal is to cut the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes — the species responsible for spreading Zika, dengue and chikungunya. A. aegypti have been present in California’s Central Valley since 2013 and have been a problem in Fresno County.”

“Each week for 20 weeks, the company plans to release 1 million of the sterile, non-biting male mosquitoes in two neighborhoods in Fresno County. The male mosquitoes are bred and infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium that is “naturally found in at least 40 percent of all insect species,” according to The Scientist magazine, though it’s normally not found in A. aegypti.”

 

Assessing key safety concerns of a Wolbachia-based strategy to control dengue transmission by Aedes mosquitoes

Powassan Virus Transmission Time

by

Transmission of Powassan Virus from infected ticks has been found to be much shorter in mice than for other tick vectored diseases.

Abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15381804#

Short report: duration of tick attachment required for transmission of powassan virus by deer ticks.

Ebel GD1, Kramer LD.

Author information

Abstract

Infected deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) were allowed to attach to naive mice for variable lengths of time to determine the duration of tick attachment required for Powassan (POW) virus transmission to occur. Viral load in engorged larvae detaching from viremic mice and in resulting nymphs was also monitored. Ninety percent of larval ticks acquired POW virus from mice that had been intraperitoneally inoculated with 10(5) plaque-forming units (PFU). Engorged larvae contained approximately 10 PFU. Transstadial transmission efficiency was 22%, resulting in approximately 20% infection in nymphs that had fed as larvae on viremic mice. Titer increased approximately 100-fold during molting. Nymphal deer ticks efficiently transmitted POW virus to naive mice after as few as 15 minutes of attachment, suggesting that unlike Borrelia burgdorferi, Babesia microti, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum, no grace period exists between tick attachment and POW virus transmission.

Click here for link.