ECU Environmental Health (EH) students, Heidi Knecht, Adam Vang and Melinda Fields, traveled last week to Columbus County, NC to set up 6 carbon dioxide-baited CDC light traps throughout the county.  Their purpose was to help the county (Brandon Grigsby from Columbus County Environmental Health) gather mosquito data to support a potential application for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding for insecticide treatments.  The students were under the leadership of ECU EH faculty, Dr. Stephanie Richards.

This week, the team will be identifying the trap contents at the ECU research laboratory.  Of the traps that have been identified, more than 5,000 mosquitoes per trap were estimated, with one trap containing more than 9,500 mosquitoes.  The Columbus County health director presented some of the mosquito data at the county commissioner meeting yesterday evening.