By Jaci Schneider, Copy Editor
While the West Nile virus has been confirmed in Abilene, students shouldn’t have to worry about becoming infected. On Aug. 11, the city of Abilene announced that a female mosquito from the Potosi area tested positive for the virus. However, Glen Bailey, the environmental health director for the city, said that there have been no other reports of the virus in humans, horses or bugs. He also said that students probably wouldn’t even know if they were infected.
“Our bodies fight it,” he said. “Anybody with a good immune system probably wouldn’t even know they had it.”
Symptoms of the virus are like those of the flu, Bailey said, and include fever, muscle ache and fatigue.
As a result of the finding earlier this month, the city offered to spray neighborhoods to get rid of mosquitoes, and because of a large number of requests from residents, most of the city was sprayed. Because of the rain in the past few weeks and the hot weather, mosquitoes have been hatching more quickly than normal, making the pesky bug an even larger nuisance.
Bailey said the city first treats standing water beginning in February, when the mos-quito larvae hatch. But by this time of year, the city sprays for adult mosquitoes. The neighborhoods around campus were also included in the spray.
Bob Nevill, director of Physical Resources said the university also treats standing water and sprays for the insect when needed.
Nevill said the university employs a pesticide com-pany to treat reported problems on campus every week.
Around this time of year, students may notice a surprising increase in the number of crickets on campus. The black insects tend to congregate near buildings on campus, and during dusk and early evening, make walking through campus more like a dance around crickets than a relaxing stroll.
“We treat for the elimination of crickets,” Nevill said. “But the population regenerates very rapidly during certain times of year making total pest control very difficult to attain.”
Nevill said Physical Resources has not yet received any complaints about the insects, but does “expect to hear about areas where the numbers of pests, like crickets, are creating a qual-ity of life issue.”
“We will deal with these as they come to our attention,” he said.
