The Sioux Falls Health Departmentis monitoring for the presence of mosquitoes that could transmit the Zika Virus. The city has three new traps designed to attract species of mosquitoes known to carry the Zika virus. Denise Patton is with the Sioux Falls Health Department. She says the city doesn’t expect to catch anything unusual. But in case a new mosquito is introduced into the state, they want to be the first to know.
“The Zika traps are set right next to our other traps," says Patton. "We have Co2 batted light traps, those are the normal ones that we use. We set them up right next to either other so we can kind of compare the data. We also intentionally placed three different tires next to it so we can get standing water and dip for larva and then I’m doing identification of the larva samples that are in there. Again to see if we might have an introduction that is not emerging as an adult, just kind of a little bit more scientific data for us to work with. As of now, nothing has shown up."
Patton says the most likely introduction of the mosquito into the state would be through a tire or container. But chances of this are very slim.