An underutilized way to help control vector-borne diseases is to manage the vectors.
You may or may not do mosquito work, but you probably get mosquito questions from your customers. Many people tend to group all insects as pests and -- since you are who they think of for pest control -- you are apt to get the questions. Yet mosquito work remains a very small part of most PMPs overall business mix. In a supplement to the magazine, PCT reported that while nearly half of all pest management firms do mosquito work, for 45% of them the total revenue earned is under $5,000.
So it pays to learn a little bit about this insect that is known as the world's most dangerous animal. Mosquito management has been in the news a lot recently, particularly controlling the Ae. ae. mosquito, which is known to carry dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and the Zika virus.
|ESA's Executive Director C. David Gammel discusses the|
importance of vector control during a March 2016
Aedes aegypti control summit in Brazil.
- Ensuring that those most affected by the mosquito receive accurate scientific knowledge on ways that they can help to control the insect.
- Funding the research needed to develop better tools and techniques for vector control.
- The vector control community must organize and speak in a unified way for us to speak locally and globally on the critical importance of vector control research and implementation.
- USAID is funding $30 million in grants to fight the Zika virus, much of it going toward control and surveillance tactics.
- The US Department of Health and Human Services recently shifted $81 million from other priorities to focus on Zika.
- A spokesman for the American Mosquito Control Association is calling for a national initiative to make mosquito breeding socially unacceptable.
|Image courtesy of CDC|