Israel: Arava region hit by west Nile virus-infected mosquitoes

Tel Aviv [Israel], August 3 (ANI/TPS): The Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Health of Israel announced that 90 female mosquitoes infected with the West Nile virus were caught along the axis in the south of the Arava – the valley below the Dead Sea to the east of the Negev – in the settlements of Paran, Elifaz and Yotvata and in the Sapir Center.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection alerted the regional councils of the Middle Arava and the Eilot region, in whose territory the infected mosquitoes were found, and ordered the increased monitoring of the infected area and, if necessary, immediate preventive and extermination actions.
Each season, the pest and control team of the Ministry of Environmental Protection carries out hundreds of captures and thousands of monitoring of mosquito larvae. The mosquitoes are transferred to the Ministry of Health laboratories for testing. With each detection of infected mosquitoes, the Ministry of Environmental Protection forwards to the local authority an immediate demand to deal with the hazard. (ANI/TPS)