Staten Island Mosquitoes Have Summer's First Cases of West Nile

Today the NYC Health Department has announced that the West Nile Virus has been discovered in mosquitoes on Staten Island. These are the first documented cases of West Nile in the city this summer. No human cases of the virus have been found yet. The Health Department is trying to control the outbreak by increasing surveillance of mosquitoes and control of larvae in Eltingville, the neighborhood where the first cases were found. The department is also advising residents to wear mosquito repellent at all times, to wear long sleeves at dawn and dusk, and to eliminate all pools of standing water where mosquitoes can breed. While this outbreak is bad news for the residents of Eltingville, in the Rockaways, there is hope that perhaps the city will take complaints about overwhelming numbers of mosquitos more seriously. [via silive]