By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 01 Sep 2015 • 16:31
ALICANTE UNIVERSITY experts warned that tiger mosquitoes are spreading throughout the province.
Pharmacists agree. “People come here with such huge bites that I send them to the health centre,” said one in Muchamiel.
Primary care doctors said they were seeing 20 per cent more patients with bites from this non-native insect.
The tiger-striped mosquitoes do not remain in wetlands but are closely associated with humans and to date Alicante health centres and hospitals have dealt with 5,000 cases of insect bites, a fifth of them at Alicante General Hospital.
A tiger mosquito’s bite is worse than that of the native Spanish species although the outcome is seldom serious or life-threatening. Occasionally they pass on malaria or chikungunya, as in the recent case of a Gandia resident who contracted the tropical disease without leaving Spain.
Pilar Mateo, an expert in diseases transmitted by insects, said that tiger mosquitoes spread rapidly and steps should be taken to control them in the winter as well as the spring and summer. “They should be eliminated during their entire life cycle, not only as adults,” she recommended.
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I know the feeling my son has loads of bites on his legsthe usual things don’t seem to work- does anyone know where one can get the spirals that you light?Kay beniarbeig
I normally don’t get bothered by mosquitos but this year I ended up with several very large lumps on lower legs which I guess must be these little buggers. It would be interesting to know why these have started breeding in Spain.
I do hope someone reads this! For years I’ve strolled about the orange fields here in Alicante. Every summer I enjoyed the frogs.. they were in every water deposit in the orange groves.. last year there were NONE. Instead we had a plague of mosquitos breeding happily where the frogs would normally have been eating them. It’s obvious… but will anyone do anything even seeing this? What is killing off the frogs in the orchards? One can only assume it’s the use of agro-chemicals…. can’t someone “up there” investigate and bring back the frogs before we all get sick?
We were all badly bitten by the Tiger Mozzies in Moraira in 2015…so much so we are put off going again – can anyone tell me any coastal area not yet affected by them. we were so ill after being bitten we lost 9 days of our holiday . After paying out for an expensive villa it was very disheartening.I understand that they are as far down as Alicante – does anyone know different please?
[quote]Yet our Ayuntamiento will do nothing about an illegal, and now abandoned,build behind us that has a pool with stagnant water in it.[/quote]Pour oil on water then they can’t breed init. Fine film of oil not great mass.
it is about time the government took it seriously about mosquitos.. they should start using crop spraying planes to eradicate the pests., so we can enjoy lovely spain.
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