Mosquito-Borne Illnesses Are Sickening New Yorkers

NEW YORK, NY – As the weather heats up, a new report warns New York is being hit harder than almost any other state by diseases spread by mosquitoes.

With 7,167 illnesses reported in the state between 2004 and 2016, only California has more, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Above California is the territory Puerto Rico, where the CDC reported over 80,000 cases.

They include West Nile, the most commonly mosquito-borne sickness transmitted in the United States, according to the CDC. Overall, illnesses from mosquito, tick and flea bites have tripled in the country between 2004 and 2016. The report found that since 2004, nine insect-borne diseases were discovered or introduced for the first time in the United States and its territories.

Illnesses spread by ticks are also hitting New York hard, the report said.

The CDC said the nation needs to be better prepared to handle a potential outbreak of disease. CDC Director Robert R. Redfield said in a news release that diseases like Zika, Went Nile and chikungunya have confronted the U.S. in recent years, adding that the country must invest in state and local health departments, which he called the nation’s first line of defense against vector-borne diseases.

Between 2004 and 2016, Chikungunya and Zika caused outbreaks in the US for the first time.

According to the CDC, more people are at risk of being infected because commerce moves mosquitoes, ticks and fleas around the world. Infected travelers can introduce and spread germs across the world and mosquitoes and ticks move germs into new areas of the US, causing more people to be at risk.

More than 90 percent of people infected with dengue, chikungunya and Zika in the U.S. were infected in Latin America and the U.S. territories. A limited number of people were infected in Florida, Hawaii and Texas.

The CDC notes that despite the presence of mosquitoes that can transmit diseases, like the aedes aegypti mosquito whose range has been expanding and might be present in 38 states, transmission within the U.S. has been rare.

“Whatever the biologic, economic, behavioral, or land use reasons for these differences, the presence of vectors with proven or possible capacity to transmit a wide range of pathogens leaves the United States susceptible to outbreaks of exotic vector-borne diseases, as demonstrated by the limited local transmission of dengue and Zika viruses in Florida and Texas,” the report says.

The lead author of the CDC study, Dr. Lyle R. Petersen, told The New York Times that warmer weather is an important cause in the surge but he didn’t directly link the increase to climate change. Petersen also said a lack of vaccines and jet travel were factors in the surge.

The CDC says the burden falls on local health agencies to survey and control mosquitoes and nearly all vector control operations are locally funded and operated.

You can find tips on how to prevent mosquito bites from the CDC here.

Originally reported by Feroze Dhanoa/Patch