Aussie airport identified as potential breeding site for exotic disease-carrying insect

An underground drain at an Australian airport has been identified as a potential breeding site for deadly exotic mosquitoes. The insects have the potential to carry life-threatening diseases including dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika virus.

Federal authorities are trialling specialized traps around Brisbane International Airport to capture mosquitoes as they emerge from stagnant water into the daylight. Experts within the Department of Agriculture are focused on tracking down habitats where larvae of invasive Asian tiger and yellow-fever mosquitoes could thrive.

“They typically enter Australia via baggage and cargo containers carried in aircraft arriving from overseas and can potentially breed in the vicinity of airports,” department acting deputy secretary of biosecurity Beth Cookson said.​

“We are working hard to ensure they do not become established in these border areas.”

Specialized traps trialled as surveillance measure

The Hamer traps are being trialled by the Department’s Vector Monitoring Program around the airport drains they’ve described as a “hidden underground risk.” The specialized devices were developed in the United States to help slow the spread of West Nile virus.

In Australia, they have successfully captured native mosquitoes, leading the Department to believe they can be used as a surveillance measure for exotic species.

“Exotic mosquitoes pose a serious risk to public health,” Crookson warned.

Dengue fever virus is not yet established on mainland Australia. However, warming weather caused by climate change will likely create favorable conditions that allow exotic mosquitoes which spread the virus to permanently live there.

“At the moment there are no mosquitoes in Sydney for instance that can transmit it. So even though we might see a thousand travelers come back every year infected with dengue, there’s no risk that they’re going to trigger a local outbreak,” University of Sydney mosquito expert Dr Cameron Webb told Yahoo News in January.

“But once you’ve got these mosquitoes in your cities, or towns or suburbs, they are kind of like the tinder in the forest just waiting for that spark of infected traveler to trigger an outbreak.”

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