Ridgefield has dodged a bullet when it comes to mosquito-borne diseases that potentially could exist in the town’s swamps and ponds.
The town has a clean bill of bill for West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis for nearly 20 years, according to a scientist with the State of Connecticut Mosquito Management Program.
The mosquito management program began its monitoring season on June 1, and the first report on June 8 showed Ridgefield is clean.
Ridgefield’s Great Swamp is one of the 91 mosquito trapping and testing locations in the state operated by the lab, based in New Haven at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
“It seems very quiet over there in Ridgefield. The town is fortunate we’ve never detected West Nile in that location, despite all the surrounding communities with it,” said Philip Armstrong, the scientist.
He mentioned Danbury, Wilton and Redding as towns that have tested positive for the mosquito-borne disease.
“The risk is low,” Armstrong said of Ridgefield, although he could not say why exactly that is, since the town has no shortage of swamps and ponds where mosquitoes breed.
Statewide, the mosquito program scientists are urging residents to eliminate standing water on their property and take precautions to avoid mosquito bites in areas where West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis are identified.
Last season, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station trapped and tested more than 200,000 mosquitoes and identified West Nile virus -positive mosquitoes in 15 towns including Danbury, Darien, Greenwich, Norwalk and Stamford.
As in prior years, the majority of West Nile virus activity was detected in urban and suburban regions in southwestern and central Connecticut.
During 2014, six people were reported with West Nile virus-associated illnesses, including in Stamford. Clinical syndromes included fever, meningitis and encephalitis. The patients ranged in age from 23 to 63, according to the mosquito center.
There were no fatalities. While West Nile virus infections are usually not fatal, patients with meningitis or encephalitis may suffer long-lasting symptoms of the nervous system, according to scientists at the lab who issued a statement on the disease.
Ridgefield’s swamp has been one of the trapping sites since the program began in 1997, Armstrong said. It will continue to be a trapping site, even though results are clean.
“It’s worth continuing to monitor in Ridgefield,” Armstrong said.
Eastern equine encephalitis was last detected in the Ridgefield swamp in 1998, he said.
Mosquito season runs from June 1 to the first hard frost of fall.
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