# Integrated Mosquito Management

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAfji1evzV0

[00:05] All right, we're going to get things started.
[00:08] I hope everyone is doing well today.
[00:11] Uh, welcome and thank you for joining us for today's webinar, integrated mosquito management.
[00:19] My name is Chris Walker, senior program analyst here at the National Environment Health Association, and I will be your host today.
[00:28] To begin today's webinar, I will highlight a partnership between two organizations, uh, and provide a brief overview of each and what they do.
[00:37] Uh, then I will introduce today's speaker, and in which uh he has an amazing presentation plan for you today.
[00:45] I, we will have a Q&A session following their presentation, and as we come to an end, we will provide a few final announcements on some upcoming opportunities.
[00:57] Allow me to cover a few housekeeping items before we get started.
[01:00] Uh, please note that this webinar is
[01:05] Being recorded, uh, the recording will be uploaded onto the NIAB Vectors and Pest webinars page.
[01:14] You can also find recordings to previous webinars there as well.
[01:21] Uh, the web address is www.nea.org vector-hyphen-webinars.
[01:28] If you have any questions for our speaker during the presentation, please use the Q&A box to submit your questions, and we will attend to them after the presentation.
[01:36] You can find the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen.
[01:39] And at the conclusion of the webinar, you will receive a link to take part in an evaluation survey to provide feedback and comments on today's webinar.
[01:49] We ask that you take the time to provide, to let us know how we can continue to meet your needs as an organization.
[02:00] This webinar is brought to you through a collaboration between GF South Vector and the National Environment.
[02:06] Health Association through grant funding from the centers of Disease Control and prevention allow me to share some information about both organizations.
[02:16] The mission at the Gulf South Vector Educational Center for training Outreach and resources or vector for short is to forge a robust Innovative multidisiplinary and Cooperative Regional Network.
[02:27] They aim to provide Innovative training and resources to professionals and pre-service students creating a unified Workforce that enhances Regional capacity to Monitor and respond to Vector born disease threats.
[02:48] If you want to know more about this organization you can scan the QR code on the screen or visit their web page at Vector outreach.org.
[03:03] Now for those of you who may not be familiar with Niha we support the
[03:08] Environmental Public Health Workforce as an association everything we do is to build, sustain, and empower environmental public health professionals so that they are equipped and prepared to protect the health and communities across the country.
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[03:51] We also offer credentials to certify the expertise of our Workforce.
[03:56] In addition to our large Online Library of trainings, webinars, and available tools and resources, we also host an annual education conference which includes multiple sessions focused on many different fields of environmental Public Health such as.
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[05:10] Slide now allow me to introduce our speaker.
[05:13] Please welcome Alex.
[05:16] Alex Pavlakis is a graduate of Tulane University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Health and a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
[05:27] He has worked with the City of New Orleans Mosquito, Permit, and Rodent Control Board since 2019 as an entomologist.
[05:35] He currently manages field research projects, weekly arbovirus and mosquito surveillance, and mosquito abatement efforts for the parish.
[05:43] Alex, the floor is all yours.
[05:49] Thank you so much, Chris.
[05:53] Um, let me share my screen.
[05:56] Um, and can everyone see my presentation?
[06:02] Yes, perfect.
[06:05] Um, well, thank you everyone for joining.
[06:07] It's a privilege to be able to speak with you all today.
[06:09] And so today I'm going to be...
[06:11] Going over or giving an overview of integrated mosquito management and giving some examples of how we implement these core tenants in our Parish to um better control and understand mosquito populations.
[06:26] So before we can even get into integrated mosquito management, we have to understand what is integrated pest management.
[06:32] So one of our biggest challenges that we face is finding sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions for managing our ecosystem.
[06:40] And while pests are, we all know that pests are a nuisance, they can also be very important in health and safety and be a risk for those things.
[06:50] So by using IPM strategies, we can uh better help us grow food, reduce or eliminate pests entirely, uh reduce uh disease burdens that's safer for our communities and uh more effective and more environmentally friendly and more cost efficient uh ways.
[07:05] So overall, integrated pest management uses a combination of science grounded and databased approaches to
[07:13] Control pests.
[07:15] Overall, so the core tenants of IPM, uh, we're going to go over these ones one by one.
[07:20] So for the first two, uh, steps, it's going to be to identify that pest of concern and to be able to monitor that pest's activity.
[07:27] So we want to, and with that monitoring, we're collecting this data, and we're using that data as a basis of action for our decisions.
[07:35] Well, then we, then you need to develop a comprehensive plan and thresholds of when to act.
[07:39] So this is setting your action thresholds.
[07:44] Um, once you've hit those action thresholds, you're going to be using those control decisions, and so there are many different ways to control these pests, including, uh, cultural and behavioral practices.
[07:54] Um, using the least harmful approaches, and you know, we want to always make sure that we're using, uh, or we're trying to reduce the use of pesticides or chemical controls.
[08:06] And then finally, uh, the last thing is the ability to evaluate that program, so seeing what is working, what.
[08:13] The results are, are we actually controlling the pest with the controls that we are, um, uh, doing so now?
[08:22] So now that we understand what integrated pest management as a whole, integrated mosquito management is just a more, um, specific, uh, set of, uh, pillars to control mosquitoes.
[08:33] So an integrated mosquito management, um, system uses a combination of methods to control mosquitoes that are based on the understanding of the mosquitoes' biology, their behaviors, their life cycle, and the way that they spread, uh, parasites and viruses.
[08:47] So we have six core tenants of an integrated mosquito program.
[08:52] Our surveillance is going to be those identify and monitor steps of an IPM program.
[08:58] The use of chemical controls like larvicides and adulticides, as well as biological control, is going to be part of that control.
[09:04] Uh, source reduction and public education is going to be part of those prevention, uh, core tenants.
[09:09] And then resistance testing is going to be part of that evaluation last.
[09:13] Step so before we go into each one of these steps individually just to give an overview for people that are not as um uh interested with mosquito life to go over their life cycle.
[09:24] So to start adult mosquitoes are going to lay their eggs in the water all mosquitoes adults do this um.
[09:30] Those eggs are going to hatch and they're going to have these four developmental stages in the larval stage that we call instars in stars one through four um.
[09:40] In this stage this is where these larva are feeding on bacteria and other organic um matter that falls into that water and they're growing and developing in these stages.
[09:49] Then then develop into the people stage and finally emerge uh as the only terrestrial stage in this life cycle as the adult mosquito that we all know and hate.
[10:00] So let's start off with our surveillance core tenant right so before we know before we can even do surveillance we need to know that there's a difference between a survey and surveillance.
[10:11] So a survey is going to be a one-time gathering of data for a specific purpose.
[10:14] So like a questionnaire like after you had a customer service and you and uh and the company sends it out to you, that's a one-time collection of data.
[10:23] Surveillance is going to be monitoring over time, so a continuous data collection.
[10:29] So you can think of like things like Hospital disease reporting or municipal water quality testing.
[10:34] So as a program here, we're building surveillance.
[10:35] We want to collect data uh continuously over time, not just one time in the year.
[10:40] So our surveillance program is the core function of any uh mosquito control program.
[10:46] And the primary goal with uh surveillance is to have an appropriate and timely response to that surveillance data, so that you can prevent human and animal disease.
[10:56] If you are putting out traps uh this week and then you don't look at those results until a couple months from now, well then that data is practically useless.
[11:09] So our our um our goal here is to make sure that we have an appropriate and timely response to whatever data that we're.
[11:15] Collecting and there's many things we can do with surveillance data, but I'm going to go over four kind of the major ones that we do.
[11:22] So with that surveillance data, we can monitor the spatial and temporal mosquito population dynamics and their relationships with virus transmission and disease incidents.
[11:31] We can also figure out where these mosquitoes are breeding, what are their primary habitats, um, and that can change uh throughout the year.
[11:37] Sometimes we've seen mosquitoes have uh a habitat that they primarily are in the beginning of a season and it changed over time.
[11:46] Uh, we can establish if our vector control measures are effective, if they're working, if we're seeing a reduction in these populations.
[11:54] Uh, and finally, we can find new and invasive species or extend the range of established species, and this is really important um in figuring out, you know, if we're worried about potential vectors of diseases that aren't uh endemic here.
[12:06] We want to know if these vectors uh establish themselves in our communities, um, and so that's something that we constantly do, especially after um hurricanes and other major weather.
[12:16] Events that may blow in many mosquitoes into our area that might have not been there before.
[12:21] So how do we conduct adult surveillance?
[12:24] Well, we utilize several different traps, and these traps target specific life stages and also different species.
[12:31] So we have to use a multitude of traps to get a better idea of our mosquito populations.
[12:35] So on the bottom here, I have the ones that are host seeking in red and the ones in blue as a gravage.
[12:41] And this is just talking about that specific life stage.
[12:44] So host seeking is talking about mosquitoes that are looking for a host to take that blood meal.
[12:51] So we all know that female mosquitoes, they are trying to get that blood so they can get the proteins for egg production, right?
[12:59] So these are mosquitoes that are actively looking for a host, and these traps utilize baits to target those mosquitoes to find them.
[13:07] Gravid traps is different.
[13:08] These are mosquitoes that have already taken that blood meal, they have developed those eggs, and they are ready to lay those eggs.
[13:15] So these traps are targeting mosquitoes and what they're.
[13:16] Good for is looking for mosquitoes that have already had that opportunity to take a blood meal, so they have the opportunity of picking up any arbovirus, so they're more likely to come back positive with an AR virus of concern that we're looking for.
[13:32] And then there's many modifications of these traps that you can do to assist the performance and targeting of specific species.
[13:40] So one of the examples is for our BG Sentinel traps, we add, using dry ice as a bait, and that has drastically increased the amount of mosquitoes, but also increased the diversity of mosquitoes that we're capturing in those traps.
[14:00] So let's first talk about our gravid surveillance program.
[14:02] This is our arbovirus surveillance program, and this is run year-round with weekly collections.
[14:09] So one of the things we're really proud of is that over the years we've continued to grow this program, and the reason why it's important to grow this program, like in 2016 we put out 19 traps weekly now.
[14:19] In 2024 we've put out 46 traps weekly.
[14:21] And this gives us much better data.
[14:23] Granulated data at the at specific areas of the city.
[14:26] So we can understand where these mosquitoes are, where our positives are occurring, uh, and where we can target our uh control efforts uh based off of having more trapping and having an understanding of these different population uh abundances throughout the city.
[14:42] So we place our traps in many different areas.
[14:44] We um typically are utilizing city-owned lots or agencies, so fire stations and libraries and police stations, um, other lots that the city owns and hasn't built on yet.
[14:58] Uh, but in some areas that's it's not uh there's not really a good you know city agency around there, especially in these kind of farther out areas.
[15:04] So we utilize uh private property with permission from citizens um to do these long-term sites of trapping.
[15:11] And these traps are really good because they target um clex species and and they really are good at targeting our primary um species of concern here.
[15:20] Which is Clex quinap fasciatus, um, because our, uh, because they are primary vector of West Nile virus.
[15:26] But these traps are really good at targeting many different CX species, um, and those species are captured, uh, put into pools, and then we send them for, uh, weekly testing of Arbor viruses, including West Nile virus, St. Louis, and sephtis, and Eastern Ean entis.
[15:44] So what happens next, right?
[15:46] We're placing these at the beginning of the week, so we'll place our traps on Monday mornings, we'll then collect our traps on Tuesday mornings and identify all these, uh, mosquitoes to the species level when possible.
[15:57] Those species of concern are stored into species-specific vials and they're taken to, um, our state lab at LSU on Wednesdays, and then we'll receive those results from the Arbor virus screenings on Friday afternoons.
[16:10] And so, as we talked about, what our primary goal here is is is appropriate and timely response, um, to that data.
[16:15] We're collecting our control decisions are made immediately based not only on the vector abundances, uh, but also those.
[16:21] Results that we get on Friday, so we're really wanting to respond the day we get those uh results.
[16:27] That's actually one of the things that we're working on on here is to reduce this lag time uh to be able to get uh our results a little bit faster than Friday, so we can respond to these uh mosquitoes that we capture on over Monday night, Tuesday morning um and have a better response.
[16:45] And so all of this is this core activity of our surveillance program here for mosquitoes.
[16:48] And to give an overview of of of what our like kind of organizational um or stakeholders that we work with, it's not a a process that we do alone, right?
[16:55] So mosquito control districts all throughout the state are sending this information to the arbiv viral diagnostic lab, and they're sharing that with federal and state agencies um health public health agencies, veterinarians um and all that data is being uh sent back and forth so that we're able to best respond to our citizens uh.
[17:19] And so one of the uh tools that I want to highlight um for anyone that doesn't know about it is Vector.
[17:23] So Vector Serve is a web-based platform for data management and analysis used by vector control agencies and public health agencies in several US states.
[17:35] So it's not used nationwide yet, but Louisiana just joined in using the platform in 2023.
[17:40] It's a really, really great tool to view statewide and really specific county or parish arbovirus activity for many different arboviruses, including West Nile virus, Western equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, and so on.
[17:56] So if you haven't checked out that site, it's very, very amazing and has great public-facing maps.
[18:03] So not only do we do surveillance for arboviruses, but we also kind of run these other routine surveillance programs just because, you know, we want to understand these other species that are not targeted by our gravid traps.
[18:17] So we can use this to monitor for abundances of other mosquitoes, collect those mosquitoes to do resistance testing, and also look.
[18:24] For other Iber viruses that are not primarily spread by clex mosquitoes.
[18:29] So one of the examples of this is if you follow the news, uh, the US had, um, a local transmission of malaria in four states last year.
[18:38] So in Texas, Florida, Maryland, and Arkansas, um, and so, you know, this was the first time in many, many years that malaria had, uh, local transmission.
[18:49] So we moved to be able to test our anop species that we collect in our CC light traps, um, and sometimes in our BG Sentinel traps, uh, and be able to test them, uh, for malaria so that we can understand those populations, which we wouldn't have been able to do with just our, uh...
[19:05] So we utilize, um, to, to monitor for, uh, container breeders, we have 29, uh, BG Sentinel 2 traps, which are the gold standard for collecting 80s, uh, uh, 80s species.
[19:18] So we have 29 locations around the city, and then for overall abundances in species diversity, we have 27.
[19:24] Locations of C light traps around the parish, uh, and then so we can also test these, um, species for, um, for Arbor viruses that are, uh, locally transmitted here, uh, and we do that sometimes.
[19:38] Uh, it just depends on, um, what we're seeing and what's going on, uh, around our Parish.
[19:46] So let's talk a little bit about action threshold and what they are.
[19:48] So, you know, just because there is a sighting of a pest doesn't mean that it's always enough to require action, though action thresholds provide a benchmark for when we should take action.
[20:01] So in terms of, for people that have agricultural pests, there's two terms, uh, that are two markers that people, um, use.
[20:06] So there's E and ET.
[20:09] So E is economic injury level, and this is going to be the lowest population density of a pest that will cause economic damage.
[20:20] The economic threshold is going to be the density of pests that has reached a point where using a control or an intervention is...
[20:26] Justified so this is going to be the
[20:27] most cost efficient point of
[20:29] intervention and while this is really
[20:31] good in the agricultural sense uh in
[20:35] public health or public health pests
[20:36] they ofer often require control at a
[20:39] lower abundance right there's not really
[20:41] a good marker of economic injury level
[20:43] for them so setting an action threshold
[20:47] is critical to guide when we should go
[20:49] out and use any of our potential control
[20:52] or abatement um uh tools so some
[20:56] mosquito control entities choose metric
[20:58] like uh Mir which is going to be the
[21:00] minimum infection rate uh or or it's the
[21:03] number of vectors uh or they can also
[21:06] use sorry the number of vectors for trap
[21:08] per night and so uh the Mir is going to
[21:12] be the number of positive pools uh over
[21:15] the total number of mosquitoes traps
[21:17] times a thousand so the CDC has a
[21:19] benchmark to take emergency action of a
[21:21] ratio of 5 to 1,000 um and then like I
[21:24] said some districts just choose um or
[21:27] find a number that work for them in
[21:29] terms of the total number of a a vector
[21:31] per trap per night that you might need
[21:33] to act in that area and while these can
[21:35] be really good um uh markers and and
[21:39] something to utilize when you're making
[21:40] these decisions um they can be
[21:42] problematic for a few reasons right so
[21:45] with Mir the problem is that the
[21:47] underlying assumption when you have a
[21:49] positive pool is that that it counts as
[21:51] one individual uh right it can't
[21:53] differentiate if you have a 100
[21:55] mosquitoes in the pool or five
[21:56] mosquitoes in the pool how many of those
[21:57] individuals
[21:59] um were positive so in in the cases of
[22:02] viruses with higher incidents like westn
[22:04] virus you may be under assuming the
[22:06] number of positive pools that you had or
[22:08] positive mosquitoes you had uh for
[22:10] Vector abundance uh there's a lot of
[22:12] environmental and epidemological factors
[22:14] that may that have to be considered when
[22:16] you're looking at these numbers right is
[22:18] 350 qlex per trap per night you know at
[22:21] the beginning of the season is very
[22:23] different than in peak season um so you
[22:25] got to think about what time of the year
[22:27] it is uh what's the weather been going
[22:29] on has been a lot of wind a lot of rain
[22:31] is there a lot of breeding in around
[22:33] that site kind of artificially because
[22:35] of some breeding
[22:37] sites um and then you know uh mosquito
[22:40] control districts have to determine
[22:42] their own action thresholds based on
[22:45] their local knowledge of their area and
[22:46] their District the species of concern
[22:49] their environment and so on um so we
[22:52] think that a a hierarchical
[22:54] decision-making process may work better
[22:56] than establishing just a specific one uh
[22:59] guide or one hit thing to make sure that
[23:03] we do actions so for us we utilize uh
[23:06] several different things to look at when
[23:08] we need to uh just start thinking about
[23:10] using control methods uh for mosquitoes
[23:13] so we can look at uh the percent change
[23:16] at specific traps compared to threeyear
[23:19] averages um we can visualize this on
[23:21] maps and see is there a general Trend in
[23:23] areas based off these traps we also can
[23:26] look at like we said before these
[23:27] overall numbers of vectors so here is an
[23:30] example of our um data in red is going
[23:33] to be our 2023 um gravid data and in
[23:37] blue is going to be the fiveyear
[23:38] averages and we can see are we seeing
[23:40] peaks in our abundances or our average
[23:42] mosquitoes per traid knite um compared
[23:44] to these fiveyear averages or these
[23:46] normal uh trends that are going on we
[23:49] could also use uh tools like uh disease
[23:52] risk uh calculators um which we've used
[23:55] Now with uh with Vector serve has great
[23:57] platform for using these
[24:00] tools um and then we can also look at
[24:02] our you know historic data just to help
[24:04] us in general ideas for our our program
[24:06] so we can look at the total number of
[24:08] our uh the total number of positive
[24:10] pools that we have and when they're
[24:12] occurring uh to help us make Staffing
[24:14] decisions and and increase awareness and
[24:16] know when to go so as we look at our our
[24:19] data here from 2013 to 2022 we can see a
[24:22] very distinct Peak activity in the
[24:25] months from July to September so we know
[24:27] we need to make sure that we have staff
[24:30] increased Staffing at that time to make
[24:31] sure that we're uh spreading that word
[24:34] to the public and increasing awareness
[24:35] during these periods of time where these
[24:37] arbiv viruses are more most
[24:41] active and when we look at our historic
[24:43] data again you can also see that uh with
[24:46] these arbiv viruses there's no kind of
[24:49] continuous Trend in every year we have
[24:51] outbreaks like years in 2012 2018 and
[24:54] 2022 for what nirus positive pools but
[24:58] then we years like last year with two
[24:59] positive mosquito pools and then when we
[25:01] look at the graph on the right with the
[25:03] same data um we can look and see that
[25:05] the human confirmed westn virus cases
[25:08] don't always uh match up with the number
[25:11] of positive pools detected so we can't
[25:13] just use one as a as a indicator for
[25:17] another so I talked about adult
[25:20] surveillance and what we do but there's
[25:21] a lot we can also do surveillance on the
[25:23] other life cycles other life cycle
[25:25] stages for the mosquito so with 80s
[25:28] species we utilize uh overos cups uh so
[25:32] we can put use either this seed
[25:34] germination paper or things like a paint
[25:36] stick fill it with water and these
[25:38] mosquitoes are going to lay their eggs
[25:40] singly on the sides of these containers
[25:42] or on the paint stick uh and then we'll
[25:45] just remove those dry it uh and we can
[25:47] store those eggs uh if we're storing
[25:49] them properly we can store them for like
[25:51] six to 12 months on average um and if
[25:53] you see on the picture on the top right
[25:55] uh that's a small little cup that we've
[25:57] hide in foliage and other places and
[25:59] these container breeders will find these
[26:01] and and and lay lots of eggs on them
[26:04] when we talk about CX species
[26:05] surveillance um they are going to be
[26:07] laying their eggs as rafts so they're
[26:09] laying their eggs on rafts on the
[26:11] surface of the water so we can put out
[26:13] things so we have our gravit trop here
[26:15] but what we would do is take off the fan
[26:17] there and just keep a bucket of um of
[26:19] our fish Emulsion and hay mixture that
[26:22] we use that's very stinky but the CX
[26:24] mosquitoes love it uh and then we can go
[26:26] in there and just remove these eggs uh
[26:28] egg graphs individually what's important
[26:30] when we're doing CX surveillance is you
[26:32] want to separate those egg graphs
[26:34] because you don't know which species
[26:36] laid them or multiple species laid in
[26:39] that tub so you want to separate the egg
[26:40] graphs uh as much as possible uh what's
[26:43] different between 8s and clex is CX will
[26:45] have a timed hatch so um you will have
[26:48] to they will hatch within 24 to 48 hours
[26:51] um and but to identify these at the egg
[26:54] stage you're going to really have to
[26:55] hatch them and raise them to identify
[26:57] what species
[26:59] um is that laid these eggs uh and other
[27:02] species have different uh behaviors for
[27:04] their egg layings I didn't go over at
[27:05] noes is kind of a mixture of both which
[27:08] they lay their eggs singly uh on the
[27:10] surface of the water that have little
[27:12] floats so different species of
[27:14] mosquitoes will uh enact different
[27:17] behaviors in all of these life stages uh
[27:19] but I just went over these two because
[27:20] they're the primary uh species of
[27:22] concern with the arbor viruses that we
[27:24] have
[27:26] present uh so we talked about you know
[27:28] egg surveillance but a really major uh
[27:31] part of our program that we realized
[27:32] like we have a great adult surveillance
[27:34] program but you know a PRI a majority of
[27:37] the mosquito life cycle is not happening
[27:39] terrestrially but actually happening in
[27:41] the Aquatic uh aquatic habitats so we
[27:44] decided that we needed to uh make sure
[27:46] that we're also doing the same type of
[27:48] surveillance we do for adults for the
[27:50] larval stages so what we identified our
[27:53] primary um habitats that we find around
[27:56] the city which is different from Parish
[27:58] to Parish or County to county or state
[27:59] to state uh but we identified our four
[28:02] primary uh habitats that we have in in
[28:05] Orleans Parish which include
[28:07] infrastructure issues swes which are
[28:09] natural um flooding which is very common
[28:13] here in uh New Orleans and Louisiana
[28:15] where we're below sea level um uh
[28:18] abandoned pools and fountains and waste
[28:19] tires and just to show kind of how
[28:23] extreme some of these sites can be we
[28:25] have uh massive Tire pile sites like
[28:28] these which hold thousands and thousands
[28:30] of tires so it's not just only oneoff
[28:32] small containers uh but these can be
[28:34] major breeding sites and I also have a
[28:36] video here this is of a infrastructure
[28:39] issue that was in front of um somebody's
[28:41] house for two years and you can see each
[28:43] one of these things squiggling around
[28:45] here that's an individual mosquito
[28:47] larvae so while we can have a robust
[28:50] system to monitor the adult stages if we
[28:53] don't Target these larval stages it
[28:55] doesn't matter what control efforts we
[28:57] do for the adults these are going to
[28:58] continue to emerge and be in the
[29:01] population so the breeding stages and
[29:03] these larval stages of the mosquito is
[29:05] extremely important to understand and to
[29:08] treat so that we can control these
[29:10] abundances of these
[29:13] vectors so for our breeding site
[29:15] surveillance uh we we uh have specific
[29:18] data to collect for each site depending
[29:20] on the habitat um we started off very
[29:23] simply with pen and paper going around
[29:25] the city and trying to understand what
[29:27] our problems are
[29:28] uh and we've upgraded this program
[29:30] finally using uh software that allows us
[29:32] to easily follow up uh these previously
[29:34] inspected sites and our inspectors can
[29:36] have all this information with them when
[29:38] they're in their vehicle out in the
[29:39] field um we find new points uh uh both
[29:43] through active and passive surveillance
[29:45] so the active surveillance will be you
[29:47] know we have one of our inspectors
[29:49] driving each Street and looking for any
[29:51] potential breeding habitats uh but
[29:54] passive surveillance occurs like through
[29:56] either citizens through requests uh when
[29:58] our inspectors are out in the field
[30:00] doing other projects and find them and
[30:02] also our work with other agencies in our
[30:05] uh in our organization that you know
[30:07] have um they report their issues to us
[30:10] they can let us know oh I think this may
[30:12] be a breeding issue and so we can track
[30:14] and and treat all of these very easily
[30:16] now with
[30:17] software um and right this data is
[30:20] really important because it can give us
[30:21] an understanding of the specific
[30:23] breeding site issues and Trends in
[30:25] specific Geographic areas in our Parish
[30:28] uh one area May deal more with abandoned
[30:30] pools and fountains another area May
[30:33] deal a lot with waste tires so it really
[30:35] helps us tailor make or tailor our uh
[30:38] control decision- making in specific
[30:40] areas of the city uh and then another
[30:43] great part of this is that with this
[30:44] data we're able to uh report it to
[30:47] external agencies to get these sites
[30:49] permanently fixed so instead of just
[30:51] Band-Aid Solutions of continuous
[30:53] treatment we can get these sites
[30:54] permanently fixed and really reduce the
[30:57] uh the breeding that's occurring in
[30:58] these
[31:00] neighborhoods so now let's talk a little
[31:02] bit about uh insecticides so uh or
[31:04] chemical controls which include
[31:06] larvicides and adulticides so why do we
[31:09] spray well it's a fast effective
[31:12] knockdown of adult Vector populations uh
[31:15] so we utilize ultra low volume
[31:17] concentrations that are formulated for
[31:18] the insect's body size and these uh
[31:22] control uh control decisions can help
[31:24] break the disease cycle so if we have uh
[31:26] arbovirus activity in our local
[31:29] populations we can get out there and try
[31:31] to uh to kill that population so that
[31:33] they're not continuing that life cycle
[31:35] of the
[31:36] disease but with the use of adulticides
[31:39] we obviously want to keep in mind to use
[31:41] the least environmentally impactful
[31:43] methods so we want to minimize the use
[31:45] of chemicals so that we're not impacting
[31:47] non-target organisms uh we only we have
[31:50] to follow uh really a strict decision-
[31:52] making process when we do spray only
[31:54] spray when needed obviously we need to
[31:56] follow that label uh because the label
[31:58] is the law we want to make sure that we
[32:00] are being we're showing product
[32:02] stewardship with larva sides you know
[32:05] there's so many different larva sides on
[32:07] the market uh with various formulations
[32:09] and modes of action so I'm not going to
[32:11] go over all different types of larva
[32:12] sides that we use but kind of highlight
[32:15] a few that we do here uh so surface oils
[32:17] they're really great uh because they
[32:20] suffocate uh the larvae and Pupa in the
[32:22] water and what's really important with
[32:24] this is in the pupil stage uh they're
[32:26] not feeding so a lot of these other
[32:28] larva sides are needing to be consumed
[32:30] by the mosquito uh larvae to to enact
[32:34] well these are great because it can uh
[32:36] control the people stage where they're
[32:38] not doing any feed we also utilize uh
[32:41] bti and BPH these are biorational
[32:44] larvicides that are uh from the soil
[32:46] bacteria and they produce a toxin that
[32:48] only targets mosquitoes and flies so uh
[32:51] very again when we're utilizing any
[32:54] chemical control we want to be very
[32:56] mindful of the potential
[32:58] uh targets uh or non-target uh effects
[33:01] so these are a lot uh this kind of gives
[33:03] us a little bit more peace of mind than
[33:05] some other larva sides that could be on
[33:06] the market uh but there's many many more
[33:09] that are on the market and the use of
[33:11] them depends on what kind of uh
[33:13] situation you're trying to treat what
[33:14] mosquito species you're targeting and we
[33:17] can apply these larvicides in many
[33:19] different ways so on the top left you
[33:21] can see uh one of our inspectors doing
[33:23] hand broadcasting of these um chemicals
[33:26] but you can also uh utilize backpacks
[33:28] and hand sprayers or even do areawide
[33:31] treatments with trucks aircrafts and
[33:34] drones so now let's talk a little bit
[33:37] about Source reduction so um this is
[33:40] something so first we'll start off with
[33:42] Home Inspections and so we offer this as
[33:45] a part of our uh three onone or our
[33:47] citizen service request uh Solutions we
[33:50] come and uh can inspect their homes with
[33:52] their permission uh but we check the
[33:54] property for standing water uh so
[33:57] mosquitoes especially container breeders
[33:59] can breed in very very small amounts of
[34:01] water uh so we can help them with
[34:03] turning over their containers removing
[34:05] clutter checking areas that they might
[34:07] not see like storm drains and gutters to
[34:09] flush them if and if they're needed if
[34:11] they're clogged uh we can dispose of
[34:13] bulky waste that holds water so any of
[34:15] these things that are listed here I can
[34:17] promise you if it's a container or if it
[34:19] has a divot um I've seen it in
[34:20] somebody's backyard and I've seen it
[34:22] breeding in someone's backyard even the
[34:24] small amounts most small amounts of
[34:26] water and we tell our our citizens right
[34:29] once a week is sign is sufficient right
[34:31] so the minimum time for an egg to go to
[34:34] an adult is going to be around six to
[34:35] seven days in this peak amazing uh
[34:38] environmental conditions for these
[34:39] mosquitoes so when they're taking out
[34:41] their garbage once a week or checking
[34:42] their mail just doing that once a week
[34:44] is going to be perfectly fine to help
[34:46] them reduce the number of mosquitoes
[34:48] that they're seeing and with these
[34:49] container breeders they're typically
[34:50] weak Flyers so if you're able to reduce
[34:53] the number of mosquitoes that are
[34:55] generally in your area uh you're going
[34:56] to be able to really reduce the number
[34:58] of mosquitoes you're seeing and we
[35:00] always say again that Source reduction
[35:02] should be done prior to applying an
[35:03] insecticide because otherwise you're
[35:05] just wasting uh chemical and overusing
[35:07] chemical for no reason if you're going
[35:08] to reduce and turn it
[35:10] over so while we also while we do these
[35:14] um citizen uh uh property checks we also
[35:17] have uh program-wide efforts to
[35:19] permanently remove uh or do Source
[35:21] reduction so our primary uh breeding
[35:24] habitat that we do Source reduction for
[35:26] is going to be waste tires so this is a
[35:28] multi- agency effort that we do with the
[35:31] Department of Sanitation and the local
[35:33] Health Department um and there's many
[35:35] other stakeholders that are involved
[35:36] with removing tires in the Orleans
[35:39] Parish area um so this tire dumping can
[35:43] be occurring on public or private
[35:45] property and that's why we use these
[35:46] other agencies because it's difficult to
[35:49] navigate certain uh situations whether
[35:51] it's on private property or public Right
[35:53] Way um and you know when we're doing
[35:56] this we have this decision between
[35:58] should we remove these tires um or do we
[36:01] need to do repeated treatments what's
[36:02] most coste effective is it is it getting
[36:04] the staff to remove them permanently and
[36:06] get rid of the site or is it easier to
[36:08] come back and Retreat them and how often
[36:10] do we need to retreat them so what we do
[36:13] with re tires is we're doing a mix of
[36:15] regular removals of smaller piles which
[36:18] our staff can do with our limited
[36:19] equipment uh we also conduct these
[36:22] larger Tire sweeps which we have an
[36:24] example of in the top left where we have
[36:26] a full day or two days where we're going
[36:27] Street by Street and removing every Tire
[36:30] pile that we see uh and we also you know
[36:32] report and prioritize uh Tire piles that
[36:35] specifically around residents and or
[36:38] areas where we know our potential uh
[36:40] like if we have uh cases of Arbor
[36:43] viruses from um from container breeders
[36:46] we know that we need to make sure that
[36:47] we're reducing all uh potential
[36:49] containers in those areas so we can work
[36:50] with these other agencies to make sure
[36:52] we prioritize these
[36:54] issues um and next let's move to
[36:56] biological control so these are really
[36:59] cool and important part of the uh
[37:01] integrated mosquito management uh
[37:02] programs so biological controls is just
[37:06] utilizing natural enemies to control
[37:08] populations of unwanted organisms the
[37:11] successes of utilizing B biological
[37:14] control just depends on the S system and
[37:16] depends on the environment you're doing
[37:19] it so it requires a lot of research
[37:21] within your own area to make sure that
[37:23] it's actually useful and effective uh
[37:26] but this is a very important
[37:28] uh part of an integrated mosquito
[37:29] management framework because it reduces
[37:32] the Reliance of chemical control methods
[37:34] if used
[37:36] correctly and so I have a few examples
[37:38] of just some successes here and there's
[37:40] a link on the bottom here where you can
[37:41] check out many more successes of
[37:43] biological controls but for example
[37:46] there is the the use of cardinal
[37:47] ladybird uh Beetle the Novus cardinalis
[37:51] um to uh control these scale species
[37:54] that wre havoc on cious crops in
[37:56] California
[37:57] uh and they were able to eradicate these
[37:59] scale species within around two years uh
[38:02] another good example um is uh utilizing
[38:06] these um SPID or to control spidermites
[38:09] uh they were able to reduce uh the
[38:12] chemical use up to 96% which is really
[38:15] great like we again we want to make sure
[38:16] that we're uh reducing our Reliance on
[38:19] chemical controls and I have highlighted
[38:22] in blue here just an example of a
[38:24] mosquito uh biological control success
[38:26] story uh with operation blessing in
[38:28] Monte Verde Honduras where they were
[38:31] controlling mosquito populations with
[38:32] applications of several biological
[38:34] control agents and so they utilized this
[38:36] Community Education and participation
[38:39] and treated water sources on properties
[38:41] with turtles fish and copi pods and they
[38:43] were able to see a real reduction in the
[38:45] number of mosquitoes uh in the
[38:49] area so we see that there you know that
[38:52] these can be used and their success
[38:54] stories but why should we use biological
[38:56] controls for mosquitoes
[38:58] well first B uh they have a broad diet
[39:00] and they can survive without the larva
[39:02] presence so they can stay in these
[39:04] habitats that we treat for long periods
[39:06] of time even without mosquitoes present
[39:08] uh they're also small and easy to
[39:09] manipulate it can survive in a variety
[39:12] of different
[39:14] habitats um and they can tolerate uh
[39:16] wide temperature ranges so they can over
[39:18] winter be there for long periods of time
[39:21] um you know and control mosquitoes over
[39:24] this over these wide temperature ranges
[39:27] uh also another good thing about them is
[39:29] they reproduce very quickly and so they
[39:31] can be very inexpensive to upkeep um and
[39:34] have as as a a tool in your
[39:37] organization uh and what's a great thing
[39:40] about them is their retreatment interval
[39:42] can be longer than many larvicides so
[39:43] the residuals residual treatment of a
[39:46] larvicide can be anywhere from like 30
[39:48] days or 90 days well these I've had
[39:51] situations where I've treated a site uh
[39:54] like with it for example the mosquito
[39:56] fish gambusia affin and they've lasted
[39:58] for over two years in an abandoned pool
[40:02] so that makes it so I don't have to go
[40:03] back and Retreat these um these areas
[40:06] with uh any chemical controls which
[40:09] saves US money saves us time um so they
[40:12] can be really amazing uh for mosquito
[40:14] control and so for example I said like
[40:16] right again Bo Ain we use in abandoned
[40:19] pools and large fountains these cop pods
[40:21] which are these very very small
[40:23] microscopic uh crustations they are
[40:25] great at controlling
[40:28] uh or they're very like easy dispersable
[40:29] and great and they uh reproduce very
[40:31] very quickly uh and then tox and kides
[40:34] species at the larel stage they're
[40:35] eating other mosquitoes so this is the
[40:37] cannibalistic mosquito uh and they're
[40:39] great because as adults they don't blood
[40:41] feed uh so they're not a concern for
[40:43] nuisance biting they're not concerned
[40:44] for spreading diseases all they like to
[40:46] do is just eat other mosquito larva uh
[40:49] and so we can spread them any ways we
[40:50] can either uh put their eggs into
[40:52] containers or we can release them as
[40:54] adults and they can find these cryptic
[40:56] Nazi
[40:57] uh containers and and lay their eggs and
[41:00] control mosquito species that we don't
[41:01] see like in tree holes or in bamboo
[41:03] shoots or other areas so I just have a
[41:06] quick video to show like how these are
[41:09] predating on mosquito species so on top
[41:12] our cop pods they like to they
[41:14] exclusively feed on First instar and
[41:17] very small second instar uh larvae uh
[41:20] and then our tox and KIIS they're going
[41:22] to feed on all stages of mosquito Lara
[41:24] depending on their size
[41:28] so let's now move to resistance testing
[41:30] and this is such an important part of an
[41:33] integrated mosquito Management program
[41:35] that many agencies um you know haven't
[41:38] put a real importance in so first to
[41:40] understand insecticide resistance is
[41:42] going to be the ability for an insect to
[41:44] survive and exposure to a standard
[41:46] lethal dose of an insecticide so here's
[41:48] just a graphic in red boxes these are
[41:51] going to be mosquitoes that are
[41:51] resistant to that uh insecticide
[41:54] treatment and in white they're going to
[41:56] be susceptible and and so you see the
[41:58] first treatment on the left then if you
[42:00] do another treatment again you know
[42:02] these genes of resistance are passed on
[42:04] to the next Generation so there's more
[42:05] in the population that are resistant and
[42:07] with subsequent uh treatments with these
[42:09] insecticides you're finally going to end
[42:11] up with a population that is fully
[42:13] resistant uh to that insecticide and
[42:15] then that that tool or that chemical use
[42:17] is going to be useless in destroying or
[42:19] killing those populations so insecticide
[42:22] resistance occurs in many different ways
[42:24] right if you misuse or overuse these
[42:26] insecticides that contributes to
[42:28] resistance so we always want to follow
[42:30] the label whenever we're using any
[42:31] chemical control uh also if you just
[42:35] have the repeated use of the same incor
[42:37] side over either short periods of time
[42:39] or even just longer periods of time so
[42:41] if you use the same uh type or chemical
[42:44] class of of uh of an adulticide you can
[42:47] really that also contributes to
[42:49] resistance so uh again we say that you
[42:52] need to uh use multiple different
[42:54] strategies again we want to rely Less on
[42:57] uh adulticides and larvicides so that we
[42:58] can uh make sure that we're not causing
[43:01] resistance uh and we also want to rotate
[43:03] those active ingredients of the chemical
[43:05] controls that we use to prevent
[43:07] resistance in our local populations and
[43:09] so to monitor this uh in house we you
[43:12] know the best way to do this is you can
[43:14] do uh uh c bottle bioessays which are
[43:17] the standard to get uh the data on
[43:19] insecticide resistance um but in 2018 we
[43:22] were also able to gain the capacity uh
[43:25] and infrastructure for genetic testing
[43:27] but now we can do
[43:29] various in resistance tests here in
[43:32] house uh so bottle by say is topical
[43:35] applications kdr assays and enzyme
[43:37] assays so the first two are going to be
[43:39] looking for the susceptibility or
[43:41] expressed resistance in that population
[43:44] and then kdr or knockdown resistance
[43:45] assays and enzyme assays will show us
[43:47] the mechanisms of resistance in that
[43:51] population and finally um I want to
[43:53] leave off with public education and this
[43:55] is so important
[43:57] uh and everyone can help and must help
[43:59] control mosquitoes and the reason is we
[44:02] cannot be everywhere we can't be in
[44:04] every backyard we can't visit every
[44:06] citizen every week uh so we need the
[44:09] Public's help to be able to control
[44:10] mosquitoes and and help reduce these
[44:12] populations so we can prevent um or
[44:14] reduce the risk of uh these Arbor
[44:17] viruses spreading uh so educational
[44:20] efforts have shown and can reduce
[44:22] mosquitoes in the area around the
[44:23] Public's home and in the neighborhood
[44:25] and have them have better EXP experience
[44:27] and not have as many uh instances of
[44:30] where they're getting bit uh so these
[44:32] topics of this educational efforts
[44:34] include the teaching them the knowledge
[44:37] of mosquitoes their behaviors and
[44:39] mosquito born diseases uh what is Source
[44:42] reduction and how to do it and this is
[44:43] something that we really invest heavily
[44:45] especially when we do these in-house
[44:47] inspections uh but also things like
[44:49] inhome prevention utilizing screens and
[44:51] pest proofing your home uh and outdoor
[44:53] protection utilizing um uh what's it
[44:56] called called uh sorry utilizing uh
[44:59] repellent and and proper uh PPE and
[45:02] proper uh clothing to reduce the risk of
[45:05] getting
[45:07] bit so just a few keys for education and
[45:11] Outreach uh the really important things
[45:14] you need to understand your audience um
[45:16] you need to collect that information to
[45:17] better understand and Target your
[45:19] audience uh you can't just rely on
[45:22] everyone or thinking that every state or
[45:24] every parish is the same each area is
[45:27] going to have their own things of
[45:28] importance own little quirks so
[45:31] understanding your target audience is
[45:32] important and then once you understand
[45:34] that you need to Target that messaging
[45:35] at each group so multiple strategies are
[45:39] needed to be effective across different
[45:40] Target audiences what we teach to school
[45:43] age children and and students at college
[45:46] is going to be very different than what
[45:47] we teach pest uh Specialists which is
[45:49] very different than what we teach
[45:51] homeowners so make sure that you're
[45:52] targeting these messages and this is a
[45:54] really good example on the right of uh
[45:57] so one of our education Outreach uh um
[46:00] materials and we want to make that very
[46:01] specific to New Orleans using shotgun
[46:03] style houses including um breeding
[46:07] habitats that we find here in New
[46:08] Orleans rather than utilizing others
[46:11] information that might not be um
[46:13] important for or or resonate with uh the
[46:17] New Orleans homeowner um brand identity
[46:20] is really really important keeping a
[46:22] consistent messaging and consistent
[46:24] color scale that helps the help citizens
[46:27] uh connect with our your organization
[46:28] trust you build that build that trust
[46:31] and continue to come back and and learn
[46:33] from you um and what we always say is
[46:35] you should never miss an opportunity to
[46:37] share the importance of vector and Pest
[46:39] Management so there's many different
[46:41] times when you can interact with people
[46:43] and we want to utilize and and um take
[46:46] advantage of every single one of these
[46:47] situations so when we're out doing
[46:50] inspections uh we want to make sure that
[46:51] we're talking about Source reduction and
[46:53] if they're not home we have door hangers
[46:55] that we can teach them and give them
[46:57] information about Vector born diseases
[46:59] and about mosquitoes how to do Source
[47:01] reduction uh we make lots of educational
[47:04] materials and and we want to distribute
[47:06] that in many many different forms
[47:08] because not every person is utilizing
[47:10] things like social media or going on a
[47:13] website uh we also hold many different
[47:15] demonstration and Outreach events um
[47:17] from anything from garden shows to
[47:19] things that are specifically targeted
[47:21] for children so that we can get these
[47:23] different uh populations that might not
[47:26] come and find our our uh information
[47:28] naturally uh we also do recertifications
[47:31] for press professionals again we're not
[47:32] the only ones in our Parish that conduct
[47:35] mosquito control so we want to make sure
[47:36] that all everybody whether you're in the
[47:39] municipal mosquito control agency or you
[47:41] are a private pest control company that
[47:44] you're utilizing the best practices so
[47:46] that we're not contributing to insect
[47:48] resistance and then finally having many
[47:51] many different again like many different
[47:53] ways to uh give this Outreach so
[47:55] webinars me media interviews press
[47:57] releases again social media is something
[47:59] that we invested very heavily in so that
[48:01] we can Target uh people that might not
[48:04] otherwise see our
[48:05] messaging and then here is just an
[48:07] example of just many of the different uh
[48:09] events that we do so it's never too
[48:11] early to start teaching pest control and
[48:14] and and and mosquito control so we have
[48:16] events targeted at children and that
[48:18] helps us get into the homes of of of of
[48:20] these parents and start to have them
[48:22] thinking about what is a conducive
[48:24] mosquito breeding habitat um we also
[48:26] hold lots of Outreach events and
[48:28] trainings like the ones in the bottom
[48:30] left which is our mosquito Academy
[48:32] teaching about resistance and how to IDE
[48:34] identify mosquitoes to the species level
[48:36] uh and so I've included here this uh
[48:38] this QR code and I'll show it on the
[48:40] next slide again but if you have any um
[48:43] if you if you're wanting to learn more
[48:44] about the GOL South vector and all the
[48:46] uh events that we hold and the potential
[48:49] trainings or if you have a program and
[48:51] you're in the Gulf South and you want to
[48:52] get it certified uh you can use this QR
[48:54] code here to scan it and get information
[48:57] about our our our group um but with that
[49:01] that's all everything that I had today
[49:02] I'm sorry if I went over with my time
[49:04] but um if there's any questions I would
[49:07] love to answer them uh and thank you
[49:09] guys again for your
[49:14] time all right thank you very much Alex
[49:18] uh we're going to we have a few
[49:20] questions uh that I'm going to read from
[49:23] the Q&A box uh the first one uh is
[49:26] appears you follow an i IMM approach in
[49:31] New Orleans uh do you also conduct
[49:34] Reston inspections in other words it
[49:36] appears you have a dedicated program
[49:38] many environmental health departments
[49:41] have so many other responsibilities It
[49:43] seems impossible for them to conduct uh
[49:46] this type of program as you as
[49:49] described uh unless it's not housed
[49:51] within an environment Health
[49:53] Department sure I mean I guess that's
[49:56] kind of a two so I guess in
[49:58] mosquito um within the mosquito realm we
[50:02] we do respond to Citizen requests so
[50:05] that it can include these private
[50:06] properties um and so restaurants have
[50:09] called if they have like an increase uh
[50:12] what we do is you know monitor the areas
[50:14] around uh that caller's request and and
[50:17] figure out what's going on there is
[50:18] there breeding habitats nearby what's
[50:21] the mosquito of concern what's their
[50:22] flight range all these aspects to help
[50:24] us Target our control decisions
[50:27] um I know our rodent control does a lot
[50:29] of uh rodent inspections that's probably
[50:31] more in that you know restaurant um sort
[50:34] of question but what I I guess for the
[50:36] second part of your question really
[50:38] there's you don't have to do it all at
[50:40] once um I think really important thing
[50:44] is getting that data and understanding
[50:45] the situation at hand so surveillance is
[50:48] is key and that can be that first step
[50:50] you know investing in a biological
[50:52] control program is costly and needs it's
[50:55] a very big barrier uh uh or a a blockade
[50:59] for a lot of organizations because you
[51:01] need certain people that know how to
[51:02] raise these things so I would say that
[51:04] there's always a way to do something um
[51:08] and again you can do you know start off
[51:10] with two traps or three traps rather
[51:12] than you know 46 like we had you had to
[51:14] build that program we didn't start
[51:15] overnight doing all these core tenants
[51:17] you know you have to slowly build into
[51:19] that type of
[51:20] program perfect thank you Alex um there
[51:25] is a question
[51:27] uh since your partner is the gulf group
[51:31] how closely are you and them watching
[51:34] the northern spread of ding uh yeah yeah
[51:39] yeah that's something really important
[51:41] um so if for people that don't know
[51:43] right uh uh South and Central America
[51:46] have had uh an epidemic and and a real
[51:49] large outbreak of den and last year was
[51:52] record highs and this year at the start
[51:53] has been uh even more um so it's that's
[51:56] definitely on our radar here uh within
[51:58] our specific agency and as a golf South
[52:01] Vector group um we are currently uh
[52:04] updating and creating um like plans of
[52:06] action that can be then you know uh like
[52:10] looked at and utilized by other agencies
[52:13] es especially smaller uh agencies to
[52:15] help build their um response to a Deni
[52:18] outbreak or potential D outbreak and
[52:20] then with inhouse uh we're gearing up to
[52:23] try to be able to do a lot of In-House
[52:25] testing um where also so we're
[52:27] collecting 8s species which are the
[52:30] primary vectors for um for den and we're
[52:33] want to understand first off our
[52:35] resistance so if we were to go out and
[52:36] needing to spray what is our localized
[52:38] resistance in each one of these zones or
[52:40] areas of the city and then also to be
[52:42] able to test these mosquitoes uh for the
[52:45] presence of these ariv viruses so that
[52:46] we can make sure uh because if you don't
[52:48] test for it you're never going to have
[52:50] you know you'll only have these human
[52:52] positive faes and that's a little late
[52:54] so we want to make sure that if we can
[52:56] we want to monitor our mosquito uh
[52:58] mosquitoes in there so we can see are we
[53:01] finding any in the local population uh
[53:04] with
[53:06] Gen thank you for that
[53:09] Alex
[53:11] um let's see what type of surveillance
[53:14] and management activities do you have at
[53:16] your points of Entry uh such as ports
[53:19] and airports in New
[53:20] Orleans yeah that's a really good
[53:22] question um and I think that's goes
[53:24] really good along the the last question
[53:26] of den that's something that we um are
[53:28] thinking about adding a little bit more
[53:30] surveillance around the ports of Entry
[53:32] um we do have these regular traps that
[53:35] go out and and uh you know the goal is
[53:38] to have this historic data to base a l
[53:40] decisions off of uh but we're
[53:42] continuously adding to our amount of
[53:45] sites and um hopefully we'll continue to
[53:48] build so that we have a especially like
[53:51] a good reading of what's not only at
[53:53] these ports of Entry but also on the uh
[53:55] barriers or or borders of our parish and
[53:58] see what's coming in what's potentially
[54:00] moving over um so that is something that
[54:03] we are looking at especially with the
[54:05] with with the potential for Deni um to
[54:08] kind of do some more trapping or or
[54:10] utilizing a few more traps to make sure
[54:12] that we are really collecting as many uh
[54:14] species of concern in that area okay
[54:17] it's a really good question though all
[54:19] right uh and this will probably be our
[54:21] last question how does the use of
[54:24] surface oils impact n Target
[54:27] species yeah definitely um that's a very
[54:31] big that's a concern when using surface
[54:33] oil so it's again not something that we
[54:36] uh want to just use whenever um you know
[54:40] it will it does create this oil barrier
[54:43] and and it will definitely um can kill
[54:46] uh non-target uh organisms that are in
[54:49] that water and suffocate them as well so
[54:53] uh you know again that's part of that
[54:55] environmentally uh
[54:57] or being environmentally conscious when
[54:58] using any of the larva sdes we use um so
[55:02] it depends on where that is is that
[55:04] water problem leaking into a storm drain
[55:06] okay then you don't want to use a
[55:07] certain chemical or or or larvicide um
[55:11] are there potential for you know you
[55:13] know kids to be playing in that water or
[55:15] things like that are all things that we
[55:16] think about before we take any action um
[55:20] the real good use or why we end up using
[55:22] surface oils is because they're the most
[55:24] effective way to control that people
[55:26] stage so if we treat it with other
[55:29] larvicides like a bti or BPH uh you're
[55:33] those those peepa will emerge and they
[55:35] will become adult mosquitoes so you will
[55:36] not kill them so it's kind of a mixture
[55:38] of like when is there a lot of peepa in
[55:41] that water is there not can we use
[55:42] something else um are there other
[55:44] organisms in that water how should we
[55:46] treat it best but each case is a oneoff
[55:48] or one by one decision it's not uh uh we
[55:51] don't have a set ground rule of like
[55:52] okay when it's this type do this you
[55:54] it's for inspector in the field really
[55:56] make those decisions and and look at all
[55:58] the context clues before they just throw
[56:00] a chemical in
[56:02] there thank you for that Alex we're now
[56:07] going
[56:09] to end
[56:12] things uh we want to thank Alex uh for
[56:15] his presentation and also for answering
[56:17] questions uh we also want to remind
[56:20] attendees of the other topics we will
[56:22] cover in this series uh two weeks from
[56:25] now uh we will have a presentation on
[56:28] integrated rodent management and about
[56:30] 30 days from now uh we will conclude the
[56:33] series with mosquito and rodic control
[56:35] preparedness so uh make sure uh you
[56:38] register and block your calendars for
[56:41] some interesting topics in vectors uh
[56:44] and Pest
[56:47] Control uh we encourage you to uh
[56:51] complete uh the Gul South Vector uh
[56:55] survey uh this survey will be helpful uh
[56:58] for the development of training
[57:00] materials uh certain questions you may
[57:03] see how to people want to learn through
[57:06] Hands-On uh podcasts webinars virtually
[57:09] in person uh and also what are the
[57:12] barriers to learning so uh we encourage
[57:16] you to uh capture the QR code the survey
[57:20] will take about 15 to 20 minutes to
[57:22] complete uh and this will be greatly
[57:24] appreciated from the Gul South Vector as
[57:28] they work towards trying to make develop
[57:32] resources specifically tailored to those
[57:34] who are uh who have a voice and to so
[57:37] make your voices heard we definitely
[57:39] encourage
[57:43] that uh lastly uh I invite you to join
[57:48] us as a national nihha member uh an
[57:51] international Niha member uh there's no
[57:53] other organization in the world doing
[57:55] what we're doing to support the
[57:57] environmental Public Health Workforce uh
[57:59] the more members we have the stronger
[58:01] our voice is at the national uh and
[58:03] international level for policy and
[58:06] funding and the more aligned we are in
[58:08] best practices across uh the world uh
[58:12] that's a stronger fit for us uh
[58:15] collectively uh for boots on the ground
[58:17] and those who are doing the work so
[58:20] thank you all for joining us today uh we
[58:23] hope you enjoyed please you'll have us
[58:26] survey that comes up please let us know
[58:29] how uh we're doing and how we can
[58:31] continue to meet your needs so thank you
[58:34] Alex thank you all for attending and
[58:36] have a great rest of your day