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What are the latest trends regarding mosquito management? Pest Management Professional (PMP) magazine wants to know as we prepare our upcoming annual Mosquito Management feature.
Please take a few minutes to complete our annual Mosquito Survey. Click here to provide your confidential feedback.
To reward you for your time, FIVE randomly chosen respondents will receive free copies of both Harvey Goldglantz’s book “Marketing Matters” and Lloyd Smigel’s book “Bug People to Business People.”
Eduardo de Varona
Could not find how to take the survey. No links that I could find. What’s up?
PMP Staff
The link is embedded in the article, but here’s the direct URL: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KH8ZT6Q
Stephen Doggett
Dear PMP, an essential part of mosquito management is surveillance, particularly for vector-borne diseases that impinge on the morbidity of the human population. In recent years there has been a revolution in the way the surveillance is being conducted. Within the mosquito catch buckets are placed special papers called FTA cards. These cards contain propriety chemicals that can trap virus nucleic acid and denatures it, rendering it safe. The FTA cards are coated in honey; the trapped mosquito feed on the honey and expectorate (spit) saliva out. Any virus present is then trapped and bound onto the cards. The cards are sent to the laboratory, where the virus is eluted (washed out) and tested molecular means such as PCR. A result can be obtained within one day. Compare this to cell culture, which has been the gold standard for arbovirus surveillance for 30 years, the latter methodology can take up to three weeks for a result. Thus we are in a much better position to serve the community by warning the public of the presence of human pathogens.
Please note that I am the Director of the New South Wales Arbovirus Surveillance Program in Sydney Australia and been involved in mosquito-borne disease surveillance for around 25 years.
Stephen Doggett, Director Medical Entomology, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia.
Frank Guido
This year gonna,try a mix made with Neem Oil, just an experiment .