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MAP: See How the City Is Controlling Mosquitos in Your Neighborhood

By Nicole Levy | August 22, 2016 5:34pm
 This Health Department map shows the total number of Aedes albopictus and Culex mosquitos trapped at locations around the five boroughs. Aedes albopictus mosquitos may be able to carry Zika. Culex species are vectors for West Nile virus.
This Health Department map shows the total number of Aedes albopictus and Culex mosquitos trapped at locations around the five boroughs. Aedes albopictus mosquitos may be able to carry Zika. Culex species are vectors for West Nile virus.
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NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

New Yorkers now have a tool to check on how the city is surveying and controlling the mosquito population in their neighborhood.

A series of interactive maps launched by the Health Department Monday offers up-to-date information about the progress of its mosquito surveillance and control operations. The agency will update the maps, part of the city's three-year $21 million initiative to prevent an outbreak of ZIka virus in New York, on a weekly basis.

Three of the interactive graphics show where and when the city has applied larvicide to storm drains and sewer grates, standing water that can only be reached on foot, and marshes, forests and swamps by helicopter. One maps the neighborhoods in which trucks have sprayed pesticides killing adult mosquitoes. Another plots out violations issued by Health Department inspectors to property owners who haven't removed outdoor standing water from the land. 

So far, city health officials have found no local mosquito carrying the Zika virus, which has been transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Central and South America and in Florida. One of the Health Department maps published Monday shows the number of Aedes albopictus mosquitos trapped by the agency at 120 locations in the five boroughs every week; the mosquito, a cousin of the aegypti species, may be able to carry Zika. The mosquitos were then tested for Zika and West Nile virus at the city's Public Health Laboratory.

New York City has taken an active role in trapping, testing and controlling mosquito populations since managing an outbreak of West Nile, another mosquito-borne disease, that began in 1999. Health officials identify sites for larvicide and pesticide spraying based on the density of mosquitos there.

The city has conducted six larvicide sprayings and five pesticide sprayings in all five borough this year, twice as many as conducted by this time last year, the Health Department said in a statement.

While the relatively mild symptoms of Zika rarely manifest in adults, studies have shown the virus can cause serious birth defects in children born to women infected with the disease.