How To Protect Yourself In Watchung, Green Brook From Mosquitos Carrying Viruses

Watchung/Green Brook, NJ - It's fun to get outside during the summer months.

But it is important to protect yourself from mosquitoes that could be carrying West Nile Virus, Chikungunya and Zika viruses.

The viruses can easily be transmitted through mosquito bites. Also children who are allergic to mosquito bites can have their bites become infected or get a bacterial skin infection called impetigo can develop.

“Mosquitoes can be more than a nuisance that spoil outdoor activities,” stated Somerset County Freeholder Deputy Director Peter S. Palmer in a release. “Many carry serious diseases that affect humans and animals.”

Palmer and the Somerset County Department of Health are offering tips to locals on how to prevent a bite. The biggest key to prevention is to eliminate breeding areas.

The Health Department’s “Fight the Bite” program offers residents simple landscaping techniques to help reduce the population of these biting insects and personal protection measures they can take to prevent mosquito bites. 

"Mosquitoes can breed in just two teaspoons of stagnant water and the typical backyard can generate thousands of mosquitoes each week," the health department stated.

9 “Fight the Bite!” Steps to prevent mosquitoes:

• Discard, or empty and scrub at least every seven days, all containers in your yard that can hold water, such as tires, bottles, flowerpot saucers, small pools, buckets and tarps.
• Keep swimming pools disinfected and filtered; do not leave a swimming pool or pool cover uncared for, even for part of the year.
• Keep gutters clean and in good repair.
• Repair leaky outdoor faucets.
• Clean and change the water in birdbaths and outside pet bowls at least twice a week.
• Screen or cover any outside rain barrels.
• Clean ornamental ponds and stock with fish that feed on mosquito larvae.
• Prevent bites by wearing long-sleeve shirts and long pants. Use a repellent containing DEET, picaridin, IR3535, oil of lemon eucalyptus, or para-menthane-diol, following the manufacturer’s instructions.
• To keep mosquitoes outside, make sure screens fit tightly and are not torn on windows and doors.

For more information about mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases, visit http://www.cdc.gov/features/stopmosquitoes/index.html 

For more information on the Zika virus, visit:

• New Jersey Department of Health: http://www.nj.gov/health
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html
• CDC Travel Health Notices: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices

For information on the “Fight the Bite” program, contact the Somerset County Department of Health at (908) 231-7155 or HealthDept@co.somerset.nj.us

(Image via Shutterstock)