Survey of Champaign-Urbana Mosquito Populations for West Nile Virus
West Nile (WN) virus was introduced into the United States in 1999, in New York City. The disease caused extensive aviary deaths and an 11% mortality rate for humans infected with WN. Since then, the virus has spread west to the Mississippi River, with 15 confirmed crow deaths in Illinois during the 2002 season as of July 1st. One crow tested positive in Champaign County on June 25th, confirming the virus's presence in the area.
The purpose of this experiment is to test mosquito populations of Champaign-Urbana for presence of WN. CDC light-traps will be used to collect mosquitoes from different areas; after sorting by species and gender, RT-PCR and TaqMan assays will be used to determine presence of the virus. If positive mosquitoes are found, the data will be used to form an infected population distribution map. This data will be useful in future surveys for infected mosquito populations of the Champaign-Urbana area. If no positives are found, the experiment will still be valuable to map out species distribution in several areas of Champaign and Urbana, and the data can be used for mosquito abatement programs.
The purpose of this experiment is to test mosquito populations of Champaign-Urbana for presence of WN. CDC light-traps will be used to collect mosquitoes from different areas; after sorting by species and gender, RT-PCR and TaqMan assays will be used to determine presence of the virus. If positive mosquitoes are found, the data will be used to form an infected population distribution map. This data will be useful in future surveys for infected mosquito populations of the Champaign-Urbana area. If no positives are found, the experiment will still be valuable to map out species distribution in several areas of Champaign and Urbana, and the data can be used for mosquito abatement programs.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Microbiology
Research Advisor:
Robert Novak
Department of Research Advisor:
Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
Year of Publication:
2002