BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The end of summer this year in the Champlain Valley was punctuated with concerns from state health officials over risks of mosquito-borne eastern equine encephalitis. but what does last year’s high prevalence of the disease mean for next summer?
Triple-e lurked in mosquitoes largely around the Champlain corridor and Northeast Kingdom from late summer into fall.
“What we saw was not only just the number of pools testing positive was way above what we’d ever seen before, but we also saw positive pools earlier in the season and we also saw them more widespread,” said state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso.
While the immediate concerns are over — the hard freeze killed infected mosquitoes — the increase has Kelso and others taking note. She says 86 pools of mosquitoes in 14 cities and towns tested positive this year compared to just 14 the previous year. Numerous horses got sick and two people were infected in Vermont. One of them died.
So what does it mean for next year? “Unfortunately, it could mean that in the areas of the state where we saw a lot of rain, we may well see a lot of the mosquitoes that can transmit,” said Patti Casey, who runs the Agency of Agriutlrue’s surveillance program. She says they’re finding places that didn’t have drought last year were more active. All of New England dealt with high rates of mosquitoes testing positive and she expects some to have it next year, too, though hopefully not as severe. “I don’t know if we’re still in the upswing. Triple-e tends to go in cycles every 10 to 12 years, so it’ll go up and then down over the space of a few years. We went many years without it. It showed up last year, you know, bad. And then this year it has definitely ratcheted up quite a bit.”
About five percent of those infected with triple-e develop severe symptoms and one-third of those people die.