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Medicine United States

The Mosquito-Borne Disease 'Triple E' Is Spreading In the US As Temperatures Rise (grist.org) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the PSA dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A 41-year-old man in New Hampshire died last week after contracting a rare mosquito-borne illness called eastern equine encephalitis virus, also known as EEE or "triple E." It was New Hampshire's first human case of the disease in a decade. Four other human EEE infections have been reported this year, in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Though this outbreak is small, and triple E does not pose a risk to most people living in the United States, public health officials and researchers are concerned about the threat the deadly virus poses to the public, both this year and in future summers. There is no known cure for the disease, which can cause severe flu-like symptoms and seizures in humans four to 10 days after exposure and kills between 30 and 40 percent of the people it infects (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source). Half of the people who survive a triple E infection are left with permanent neurological damage. Because of EEE's high mortality rate, state officials have begun spraying insecticide in Massachusetts, where 10 communities have been designated "critical" or "high risk" for triple E. Towns in the state shuttered their parks from dusk to dawn and warned people to stay inside after 6 pm, when mosquitoes are most active.

Like West Nile virus, another mosquito-borne illness that poses a risk to people in the US every summer, triple E is constrained by environmental factors that are changing rapidly as the planet warms. That's because mosquitoes thrive in the hotter, wetter conditions that climate change is producing. "We have seen a resurgence of activity with eastern equine encephalitis virus over the course of the past 10 or so years," said Theodore G. Andreadis, a researcher who studied mosquito-borne diseases at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, a state government research and public outreach outfit, for 35 years. "And we've seen an advancement into more northern regions where it had previously not been detected." Researchers don't know what causes the virus to surge and abate, but Andreadis said it's clear that climate change is one of the factors spurring its spread, particularly into new regions. [...]

Studies have shown that warmer air temperatures up to a certain threshold, around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, shorten the amount of time it takes for C. melanura eggs to hatch. Higher temperatures in the spring and fall extend the number of days mosquitoes have to breed and feed. And they'll feed more times in a summer season if it's warmer -- mosquitoes are ectothermic, meaning their metabolism speeds up in higher temperatures. Rainfall, too, plays a role in mosquito breeding and activity, since mosquito eggs need water to hatch. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which means that even small rainfall events dump more water today than they would have last century. The more standing water there is in roadside ditches, abandoned car tires, ponds, bogs, and potholes, the more opportunities mosquitoes have to breed. And warmer water decreases the incubation period for C. melanura eggs, leading one study to conclude that warmer-than-average water temperatures "increase the probability for amplification of EEE." Climate change isn't the only factor encouraging the spread of disease vectors like mosquitoes. The slow reforestation of areas that were clear-cut for industry and agriculture many decades ago is creating new habitat for insects. At the same time, developers are building new homes in wooded or half-wooded zones in ever larger numbers, putting humans in closer proximity to the natural world and the bugs that live in it. The report notes that the best way to prevent mosquito bites is to "wear long sleeves and pants at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most prone to biting, and regularly apply an effective mosquito spray." Local health departments can also help protect the public by "testing pools of water for mosquito larvae and conducting public awareness and insecticide spraying campaigns when triple E is detected," notes Wired.

A vaccine for the disease exists for horses, but because the illness is so rare "there is little incentive for vaccine manufacturers to develop a preventative for triple E in humans," adds the report.
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The Mosquito-Borne Disease 'Triple E' Is Spreading In the US As Temperatures Rise More

The Mosquito-Borne Disease 'Triple E' Is Spreading In the US As Temperatures Rise

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  • It's cute to pretend there's no climate change, global warming, or a need to change how we deal with it. If mtakes us more money if we have a stock portfolio so much the better.

    Republican Caused Disease and Republican Caused Death (RCD) is now in its sixth year, first being prevalent when Republicans pretended horse tranq would solve COVID-19. It didn't, and 3.4 million people died from COVID.

    And now the continued emphasis on detracting from science, ignoring climate and other global change, will continu

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      To be fair, the Republicans are against ANY experts who have uni degrees in anything. It makes it harder to flim-flam the proles into accepting Republican bullshit.

    • Republicans pretended horse tranq would solve COVID-19. It didn't, and 3.4 million people died from COVID.

      You do know that more people died of Covid under Biden/Harris than did under Trump...right?

      • Republicans pretended horse tranq would solve COVID-19. It didn't, and 3.4 million people died from COVID.

        You do know that more people died of Covid under Biden/Harris than did under Trump...right?

        You do know that the Florida Orange Man only had to deal with COVID-19 for about a year, while Biden/Harris has had almost 4 years?

  • You mean it's STILL happening [slashdot.org]?

  • Surely this time... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2024 @12:18AM (#64776139)

    eastern equine encephalitis

    So... Ivermectin?

  • Triple-E (Score:3)

    by muffen ( 321442 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2024 @03:10AM (#64776279)
    Ah, triple-e, been there, done that! Granted I was in a nightclub and it was the end of the 90's, but triple-e night was awesome. if mosquitoes are popping triple-e's, they are going to spread everywhere. There is no limit to how far (or high) you can fly on triple-e.

  • """A vaccine for the disease exists for horses, but because the illness is so rare "there is little incentive for vaccine manufacturers to develop a preventative for triple E in humans," adds the report."""

    This right here says everything you need to know about late-stage capitalism.

    I'm just completely stunned by the utter callousness, yet its also sadly unsurprising.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ohieaux ( 2860669 )
      If the US had 4 cases this year, and one death, why spend billions of dollars to create a human vaccine and inoculate a third of a billion people? With vaccine complications (including rare deaths), the cure would be worse than the disease. Causing 100's of deaths to save 1-2 people seems like capitalism might be working.
  • One person died by this mosquito and 4 other contracted it. We have the next COVID teeing up. This needs to be at the top of the news. Oh and it's ALL because the earth is melting like a bar of chocolate in the microwave.

  • A vaccine already exists for horses, but there is little incentive for vaccine manufacturers to develop a preventative for triple E in humans because the illness is so rare.

    What terrible capitalists. You can sell women full body deoderant and convince them their arms and fingers have a smell without it. You can sell this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      There have been experimental vaccines developed, but the regulatory process doesn't envision needing to approve a vaccine for a disease that has maybe twenty or thirty cases in a bad year; you can't do phase 2 efficacy testing, which requires hundreds of subjects. So it's safe to say there will never be an "approved" EEE vaccine.

      I discussed this with workers in a lab handling EEE some twenty years ago. Technically speaking potentially infected EEEV tissues theoretically *should* be handled in a BSL-3 fac

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I think a better use of our resources would be the worldwide eradication of mosquitoes. They serve no critical purpose in the food chain, as the various animals and insects that eat them all also eat other things. Wiping them out would significantly reduce human disease, because these things can spread all sorts of diseases from animals to humans, not just EEE.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Back in the DDT days, many mosquito "control" agencies called themselves mosquito "eradication" agencies. None of them ever came close to eradicating mosquitoes.

          Here's why. A single gravid (pregnant) mosquito can lay up to 300 eggs in a clutch. Under ideal conditions, a mosquito may go from egg to laying its own eggs in as little as two weeks. Over the course of a summer, that single egg could theoretically have 10^14 descendents. In reality it will be much less; conditions are never ideal and many

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Back in the DDT days, many mosquito "control" agencies called themselves mosquito "eradication" agencies. None of them ever came close to eradicating mosquitoes.

            Here's why. A single gravid (pregnant) mosquito can lay up to 300 eggs in a clutch. Under ideal conditions, a mosquito may go from egg to laying its own eggs in as little as two weeks. Over the course of a summer, that single egg could theoretically have 10^14 descendents. In reality it will be much less; conditions are never ideal and many females will never get a blood meal and therefore have zero descendants. However it's not out of a question for a single egg laid at the start of June to have tens of millions of descendants by September.

            It starts with releasing large numbers of genetically modified male mosquitoes designed so that the female mosquitoes in the next generation don't live to adulthood, but the males do and pass on the defective gene. From there, it's just a matter of watching the population implode. Eventually, all male mosquitoes will be genetically modified, and no females will survive to the next generation, and then there isn't a next generation.

            By the way, mosquitoes do play a number of roles in ecology. The larvae are an important food source for fish and a number of animals (frogs, birds, bats) predate on adults. A number of plants need mosquitoes as pollinators.

            I didn't say that they didn't play a role. It just isn't a critical role.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hey! ( 33014 )

              Eventually, all male mosquitoes will be genetically modified, and no females will survive to the next generation, and then there isn't a next generation.

              Having worked in the field for decades, I understand how this is supposed to work. But it only has any chance of working so perfectly in a laboratory. It has zero chance of working *so perfectly* in real world conditions. Take, say, Palm Beach county in Florida. Do you really think you can supplant the *entire* male mosquito population over two thousand square miles, about 1/3 of it wetlands? What about the places over the edges? Or beyond the edges of edges? How are you going to keep mosquitoes from

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                Eventually, all male mosquitoes will be genetically modified, and no females will survive to the next generation, and then there isn't a next generation.

                Having worked in the field for decades, I understand how this is supposed to work. But it only has any chance of working so perfectly in a laboratory. It has zero chance of working *so perfectly* in real world conditions. Take, say, Palm Beach county in Florida. Do you really think you can supplant the *entire* male mosquito population over two thousand square miles, about 1/3 of it wetlands? What about the places over the edges? Or beyond the edges of edges? How are you going to keep mosquitoes from infiltrating?

                To truly eradicate the species, this would have to be done everywhere, all at once — not just in one area at a time — and boosted wherever the mosquito count starts to rise again, as part of an ongoing worldwide eradication effort. Anything short of that will just create a temporary reduction in certain areas, which will eventually be replaced by mosquitoes migrating from other areas.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hey! ( 33014 )

                  Indeed, but this technology won't even eradicate the species locally, except possibly in certain special cases like the Florida Keys.

                  But even local eradication is very temporary. I worked with the CDC DVBID when they were tracking the emergence of the Asian tiger mosquito (Ae albopictus), which first entered the country in Houston in 1985. Within three years it was in thirteen states. If there is suitable habitat for a mosquito species, it will colonize that habitat explosively.

  • It was already north (Score:3)

    by cstacy ( 534252 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2024 @11:27AM (#64777039)

    I first heard of EEE a while back, maybe 35-40 years ago? (So long ago I can't remember.) I was living in Boston, MA at the time and it was infecting people in New England.

    It sounds like it has not been as common in recent years, and now that it's back -- just everywhere it was before -- it's due to global warming.

    Why wasn't it due to global warming in the 1980s when it was New England before?

    • Because nobody was looking at connections like that in the 80s? You wouldn't have believed it back then either.

  • Just in time for election season...

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