Mosquito Traps Set Out To Catch Irish Mosquitoes

Concerns that increases in the ambient temperature could result in tropical diseases being carried by mosquitoes in Ireland have prompted the Health Protection Surveillance Centre to ask the Fingal County Council, in collaboration with University College Cork, to undertake the trapping and identification of Ireland’s 16 known species of mosquitoes. Fingal was chosen because of  problems it has experienced in previous summers with mosquito infestation.

The researchers will be attempting to identify whether any disease-carrying species have infiltrated their numbers.  None of the existing Irish mosquitoes is thought to carry any vector-born diseases such as malaria, however researchers will be on the look-out for the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes Albopictus) in particular, which was implicated in the spread of Chikungunya fever in Italy in 2007.  

Read more in the Irish Times