Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

6977

Caption:

This aerial photograph was captured, while flying over the prairie pothole wetlands of North Dakota, in the state’s Red River region, during a 1975 Western equine encephalitis (WEE), and St. Louis encephalitis (SLE) epidemic in that area. The prairie pothole region is notorious for fostering the perpetuation of arboviral vectors such as mosquitoes, for it’s in this location that low-lying depressions fill with water from rainfall and snow melts, forming stagnant pools, which are ideal mosquito breeding sites. Culex tarsalis mosquitoes make use of these wet pools, and must be controlled, as this specie is the principal vector for WEE.