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TextSurveillance - Disease Carrying Insects Program
Surveillance is one of the key components of the Disease Carrying Insects Program (DCIP). Information on mosquitoes, ticks, and birds is gathered daily and analyzed on a weekly basis using a variety of sampling and analytical methods. The resulting data are used to monitor public health risk levels and enable the Health Department to act quickly when these risk levels are elevated.
Mosquito Surveillance
Fairfax County Mosquito Surveillance Summary Data
Mosquito trap data are associated with risk factors in order to assess and predict human risk and determine "triggers" for mosquito control activities. Adult mosquito trapping can be expanded or enhanced when routine surveillance methods detect West Nile virus activity. This helps determine zones of potential local transmission and the extent of viral activity, thus guiding interventions.
Larval (Immature)
Mosquito Surveillance -
Larval surveillance activities are currently targeted at Culex
mosquitoes and include identification, treatment, and monitoring of
breeding sites.
Adult Mosquito Surveillance -
The goal of the
Fairfax County adult mosquito surveillance program is to monitor adult
vector mosquito populations and their West Nile virus infection rates in
order to better predict risk to human populations, and to try to
determine other associated factors that may influence West Nile virus
transmission to humans. The mosquito surveillance program includes over
70 trapping stations found throughout the County, where mosquito traps
are set on a weekly basis to collect adult mosquitoes. These mosquito
traps are a critical element of the County's mosquito-borne disease
surveillance program and provide important data for analysis. If you see
this equipment, please do not disturb it. Mosquito samples, or pools, are
submitted to the Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (DCLS) in
Richmond for West Nile virus testing by reverse-transcriptase polymerase
chain reaction (RT-PCR) . Mosquito pools can also be tested for LaCrosse
Encephalitis and St. Louis Encephalitis by RT-PCR under certain
conditions (i.e. when human cases have been reported).
Mosquito Egg Surveillance-
The DCIP occasionally collects eggs of certain container-breeding
mosquitoes using ovitraps. These traps are useful in detecting some
mosquitoes that are not generally collected in traditional adult mosquito
traps.
Tick Surveillance
A tick surveillance program was established in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Health in May 2005. The program aims to define areas of public health risk according to tick populations and the diseases that they may transmit. Ticks are collected in Fairfax County using a variety of sampling methods. Collected ticks are identified to species and life stage (larvae, nymph, or adult) before being sent to DCLS for pathogen testing.
Human Surveillance
Human cases of mosquito- and tick-borne diseases are reported to the Health Department through passive and active surveillance activities. The surveillance data are used by the DCIP in assessing public health risk levels.
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