West Nile Virus Found At Long Valley Sports Fields

LONG VALLEY, NJ — A field at one Long Valley park has tested positive for West Nile virus, township officials said.

Officials said one field at Rock Spring Park has tested positive for the virus. The park has several fields and courts, including baseball, softball, tennis, and basketball; officials did not say which field was affected.

The area will be sprayed for mosquitos this Thursday; if it keeps raining, it could be pushed back to Friday.

This is the second field in the county that's been affected. A Rockaway Township baseball field tested positive earlier this year.

Residents in the area can take precautions against the risk of mosquito bites: make sure window screens are intact, wear long sleeves and pants, and stay inside during dawn and dusk hours when they are most active. To prevent mosquitoes from breeding, residents should take care to drain standing bodies of water, like bird baths or sandboxes.

"If everyone would take steps around their own homes to eliminate standing water, it could make a very big difference, reducing the number of mosquitoes by many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, where you live,'' Morris County Mosquito Division Superintendent Kristian McMorland said.

• Read More: Mosquito Season: Morris Co. Shares Tips To Keep Bugs Away

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