Florida’s hot, humid climate puts its 20 million residents at risk — along with millions more tourists

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.cbsnews.com

It is one week into February.  For New York that means we are5 or 6 weeks away from paying close attention to the first mosquitoes.  The first pests are those that successfully  overwintered.  This spring will be full of those pests, because this winter has managed to steer clear of too many El Nino-La Nina effects.  It has snowed only once up in my county, and been miserably cold for just a week or two.

 

But the first adults to re-emerge from their winter hibernation should be carrying much, we hope.  There haven’t been too many positive testing cases with West Nile and Chikungunya like we feared late last summer.

 

So weather and climate determine when the first southern disease bearers will impact this part of the States.  Whereas Aedes aegypti is the vector epidemiologists have to watch to the south, Anopheles are the pests we may have to pay close attention to up here, perhaps Aedes.  

 

So where do the Aedes mosquitoes penetrate the US with their tropical diseases?

 

I mapped the answer to this questions years ago.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHyehbfOwFo   

 

West Nile is a related disease; but it rapidly migrated across this country ecologically.  Can Zika virus do the same?  This video is of the success that West Nile had crossing this country in just a few years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKtREeEtkaY 

 

The way Mosquito Viral Encephalitis is distributed in this country is at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGu_hY_r0Ko 

 

It shows where the Dengue is brought into the US by Aedes, via people.  NY is the center for possible in-migration of the disease by infected people.  Whereas Florida, Louisiana, and numerous southern states riddles with mosquitoes are how it will enter this country ecologically.  

 

I produced a rich resource on how to evaluate mosquito-vectored diseases using GIS.  I developed a method for ecologically profiling places, to determine where these critters are most likely to run rampant, and where they will mathematically cause to most chaos to ensue and the likelihood for unexpected diseases to penetrate the local wetlands and swamp-ridden areas.

 

The following is how I used a light sensing device to develop a better ecological understanding of mosquitoes, in relation to land use patterns and ecological vegetation-domain status:  https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/west-nile-surveillance-2/

Remote sensing tells us plenty about an ecosystem and whether or not it has the features to develop a stable ecosystem for vectored diseases to survive.  See https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/6-remote-sensing/ 

My study of species for these vectors:  https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/vectors/ 

My vegetation survey derived plant ecology study: https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/3a-west-nile-surveillance-1/ 

My surveillance of cases:  https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/case-related-surveillance/ 

My method of assigning risk to areas:  https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/assigning-risk/ 

My review of topography, landform and vector patterns (won an award for this): https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/topography/ 

My NLCD grid mapping method of evaluating vector and host distributions: https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/nlcd-grid-mapping-and-west-nile/ 

My introductory page on how to do this monitoring of diseases using a GIS, with plenty of pages to follow, is https://brianaltonenmph.com/west-nile/

My award winning west nile ecology poster, 2006: https://brianaltonenmph.com/about/west-nile-ecology-poster-session-at-2006-esri-conference-denver-co/ 

 

I posted numerous videos of zoonotic disease behaviors in the US based on 1998-2012 EHRs (the past 15 years), at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWrApErk5byYvO6ZHvDzgzmPqOGs1WI9B 

 

and 

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWrApErk5byZnE0bWUqdfH4CYVmnETLg6 

 

FOR STARTERS . . . 

See on Scoop.it – Medical GIS Guide