West Nile Virus Found At Two Chester Twp Parks

CHESTER, NJ — Two Chester Township parks have tested positive for West Nile virus, township officials said. Officials said the basin at Sugar Maple Row and the ball fields in the back of Chubb Park both tested positive for the virus.

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

This is the third field in the county that's been affected. A Rockaway Township baseball field tested positive earlier this year, and fields in Long Valley tested positive recently.

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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