Recently a grant was awarded in a collaborative application from the Champaign Health District, the city of Urbana and the villages of St. Paris, Mechanicsburg, and North Lewisburg. The grant is focused on the mosquito population in the county and will assist in the cost of mosquito trapping and identification, education, and mitigation of mosquitoes. The Champaign Health District is beginning to trap for mosquitoes in areas throughout the county, looking for any evidence of the mosquitoes that are related to Zika transmission.
The collections from the traps will be sent to the Ohio Department of Health lab for identification and counting of those trapped. The Ohio Department of Health is also trapping in the county, looking for both West Nile and Zika-related mosquitoes in their traps. The state health department is doing similar trappings in many counties in Ohio and studying the different mosquitoes around the state.
For more information about mosquitoes, contact the Ohio Department of Health at www.odh.ohio.gov or 1-800-523-4439, the Champaign Health District at www.champaignhd.com or 937-484-1605, or stop at the county office at the Champaign County Community Center at 1512 S US highway 68, suite Q100 in Urbana.