SACRAMENTO — Until this past weekend, Sacramento had gone 3.5 months without a trace of rain, but those summer showers are now prompting some worries about mosquitoes.
“What we saw with the rains followed by the heat could be ideal to allow those eggs to hatch, develop into adults and then even adults to lay more eggs,” said Joel Buettner, the general manager of the Placer Mosquito and Vector Control District.
Sacramento only saw a trace, but some neighborhoods in Roseville had more than two inches of rain.
The concern is over a specific type of invasive mosquito species that can transmit deadly diseases.
“Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, can carry yellow fever, zika, dengue, chikungunya,” Buettner said.
Last year, they were detected in four Placer County neighborhoods. This year, they’ve spread to ten—mostly in the Roseville and Rocklin areas.
The good news is that West Nile Virus, which is transmitted by a different species, is way down this year, and Placer and Sacramento counties have not had any human cases reported yet.