Preparations under way to fight West Nile next summer

ST. LOUIS -- Mosquito-control officials around St. Louis and elsewhere in Missouri already are scrambling for more funding, staffing and equipment, hoping to ward off a severe outbreak of West Nile virus next summer.

Missouri ranked seventh nationwide in the number of reported human cases of West Nile, with five of those 170 infections resulting in deaths.

The mosquito-borne illness "could be as bad" next year, Dr. Howard Pue, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' chief of communicable disease control, said Thursday at a meeting of the Missouri Mosquito and Vector Control Association here.

"Some resistance does develop, but most people have not been exposed," Pue said

State public health agencies are taking a more active role in mosquito control, which is typically overseen by local governments. Pue said the Missouri health department planned to survey mosquito-control programs statewide and seek state or federal money to help them.

St. Louis this year spent $200,000 beyond its $250,000 budget for mosquito control this year, said Mark Ritter, vector control supervisor.

The state has said it also is trying to understand how 70 percent of the confirmed human cases were in St. Louis city and county, which make up slightly less than one-quarter of the state's population.

Pue said last month the state also was studying whether St. Louis has a greater population of the mosquito species most likely to transmit the virus.

Although not scientifically certified, Pue said, possible explanations may include that the West Nile virus was first reported in Missouri last fall in the St. Louis area, meaning the disease already had a foothold there for this summer.

Also, Pue said, St. Louis has a natural mosquito breading ground in some of the marshy areas created by the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Mosquitoes also may have found water puddles in old cans, tires or other objects in the vacant lots of St. Louis, he said.

The virus first appeared in the United States in 1999 in New York City.