Ville Platte taking precautions in the fight against Zika Virus

Ville Platte Mayor Jennifer Vidrine didn’t want to wait for Evangeline Parish’s first recorded case of the Zika Virus to start combating any possible spread of the disease in her hometown.
So Vidrine had Glenn Stokes of Mosquito Control Contractors out of Lafayette, who has worked with the city for the past six years, to come and set up mosquito traps throughout the city on Friday.
“I love my people in Ville Platte too much to let anything happen,” Vidrine said. “We are going to be the first municipality in the state to do this.”
A total of 30 of these mosquito traps were placed around Ville Platte, with 15 being placed on one side of LaSalle Street and the other 15 on the other side of Main Street.
The traps are black cylinders (mosquitoes are attracted to the color) that are filled with water and a strip that will trap the mosquitoes and kill the queen and any larvae.
Many of the traps that Stokes demonstrated on Friday, are the same ones his group will be taking and using in Haiti in the next few weeks.
“Mayor Vidrine is probably the most pro-active mayor in Acadiana about mosquitoes,” Stokes said.
The traps being placed around Ville Platte will remain for four weeks before being collected.
The data (how many mosquitoes, what types of mosquitoes, how many queens, etc.) will be taken to a lab and used to help combat any future outbreaks of Zika or other mosquito-based viruses such as West Nile.
“You got to think like a mosquito to kill them,” Stokes said. “If Zika ever comes here we will know how to treat it.”
The mosquito that carries the Zika Virus is one Stokes calls a “skipper, dipper, nipper.” The queen, which can lay upwards to 300 eggs, does not lay all of her eggs in one place, instead choosing to place 40-50 here and there.
“That is why the epidemic is going on in Brazil,” Stokes said.
Symptoms of the Zika Virus results in a very mild form of dengue fever, but pregnant women can spread it to their unborn babies, which in some cases results in brain problems for the child.
Stokes said that residents can take measures of their own to help lower mosquito infestation. The three most common places to find mosquito or mosquito larva are old tires, cemetery earns and junk piles.
Other places are trash cans that collect water, down spouts and even empty beer bottles or bottle tops.
“Eliminate all standing water on your property,” Stokes said. “I don’t care if it is a bottle cap. A mosquito can lay eggs in there.”