Santa Clara County officials to spray San Jose neighborhood to eradicate invasive mosquitoes

Noor Tietze, scientific-technical services manager at the Santa Clara County vector control district, pointed out the characteristic black and white stripes on the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito on May 24, 2024, which was found in April in San Jose, Calif. Santa Clara County officials will spray an East San Jose neighborhood with a bacterial spray next week in their latest attempt to eradicate an invasive species of mosquito found last month.

On Wednesday morning, authorities said, they will spray the area with a pesticide that targets the mosquitoes’ larvae. The treatment, known as Wide Area Larvicide Spraying, lasts two hours and is derived from a naturally occurring bacteria that is nontoxic to humans, beneficial insects and other forms of wildlife. The county is planning on spraying the area several times over the next few months.

A captured mosquito is shown during Santa Clara County Vector Control District’s demonstration on how its staff retrieves mosquitoes out of an invasive mosquito trap on Oct. 25, 2022, in Milpitas, Calif. “Controlling the population isn’t easy because the Aedes aegypti mosquito is adaptive to any environment and they bite other mosquitoes, making them harder to control,” Zahiri said. “Breeding is another challenge because they prefer to lay eggs in small containers, so it’s hard to find all the sources of breeding.”

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are dangerously persistent and tend to be active at all times of the day and can bite multiple times, officials said. They only move about a block away from where they hatch, making it imperative for people to get rid of any sources of standing water where the mosquitoes could potentially breed and spread.

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