West Nile and You

For the last several years West Nile has made the news.

West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne zoonotic arbovirus belonging to the genus Flavivirus in the family Flaviviridae. This flavivirus is found in temperate and tropical regions of the world.

• Zoon: Greek for Animal
• Arbovirus: Group of viruses
• Flavivirus: The name of the group or genus of viruses that contain or include the West Nile virus, dengue virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, yellow fever virus, and several other viruses which may cause encephalitis.
• Flaviviridae: family of viruses typically spread by tics or mosquitoes.

You….

What can you do to a: protect yourself and your family and B: the community in which you live?

Someone told me that there were not that many mosquitoes in my area to worry about anything other than myself.  Use pesticides with Deet to protect myself and don’t worry about it.

I however did not believe them, and I also care about my neighbors; and the small animals that live outdoors and become food for those winged vampires of the night!

I installed not one but two bug zappers in my back yard.

Each bug zapper is good for an acre and my back yard is rather small city sized lot.

After one night of operation here are the results:

So, now what can you do?

Buy a bug zapper or two and install them, especially if you are in an area with West Nile.

They are on eBay, Amazon and a host of other places and if your hold your mouth right the local hardware store may actually have them, I would not count on that however.

The trick is that these things attract bugs.  You know “go to the light…..”

So you need to hang them far enough from your door that they actually draw them away from your house.

Nope, they are not cheap.  Anywhere from $50 to $80.  What is your health worth?

-Best

PS. Are you itching yet?  I am just looking at this…. ZAP!

Update 6/11/15

I have no idea who besides me is interested in this such as this but…..

The next day both bug zapper were about half full...  No biggie; use compressed air and blow out the dead mozzies and put the zappers back in place.

Expecting that they would not be as full today I could not have been more wrong.

 

Today …Day 3 of the great bug barbecue the zappers were both chock-a-block full of fried Mozzies!

Today the newest Zapper arrived, I replaced the oldest with a “clog-proof model.” 

Tomorrow will most undoubtedly bring more Fried Mozzies but will there be less, or more or about the same….?

Yes, Mosquitoes were harmed during the making of this blog!

Yes, there were a few other critters that met their maker as well but 99% were mosquitoes!

Stay tuned for more Mozzy mayhem…..

-Best

 

 

© All Rights Reserved 2015

www.guard-protect.com

• health
• LifeStyle
• Science