(Spirit Lake)– If you’ve spent any time at all outdoors recently chances are you felt like the main course of a giant buffet because of all the mosquitoes and gnats. Katy Burke of Dickinson County Public Health says it’s another byproduct of the recent heavy rains. She says there are several things you can do to protect yourself…
“We certainly encourage people to take a look at their area and if they have any standing water that’s a place that mosquitoes love to breed and so if you have a way of taking care of that. I know everyone is struggling with disaster recovery and that’s just one more piece of that. But that helps by removing that standing water. And then also using windows and door screens or air conditioning whether it’s possible if you have air conditioning right now. Again we know everyone’s in a different situation depending on what happened in the disaster. And using long-sleeves if you can or bug spray to keep mosquitoes at bay.”
While certain breeds of mosquitoes are known for transmitting some pretty nasty diseases, Burke says the predominant type we currently have don’t pose that threat…
“After floods, though, there are a lot of nuisance mosquitoes that come about so they happen in the weeks following flooding, again with all that standing water. So a lot of nuisance mosquitoes do not carry any viruses but either way we don’t want people to get bit.”
Burke says if you should happen to get bitten and develop a severe allergic reaction, you should consult your healthcare provider as soon as possible.
