West Nile Identified in Nevada RENO, NV (KUNR) - In Nevada, state and county governments have been sampling mosquito populations, horse blood and bird saliva since February, looking for the presence of West Nile Virus and until Monday, all samples 931 had come back negative. Ed Foster of the Nevada Department of Agriculture says it's surprising that this is the latest West Nile identification on record in Nevada, especially considering California has been reporting the widespread presence of West Nile for seven weeks.

Foster: It's nuts over there. They've got a lot of positive samples over there, so we were fairly surprised being right next door, that it we were really anticipating it earlier, and we were surprised it took this long.

Monday's positive sample comes from Lovelock in rural Pershing county, and Ed Foster says despite a rise in the number of abandoned homes with swimming pools in Las Vegas and the Reno area, the state's more populous counties have been gaining ground on mosquito populations.

Foster: Because we've had it for almost five years, that in the larger counties like Washoe and Clark, who have tremendous funding to spray for mosquitoes in their vector control programs, I think we may be doing a very good job as far as keeping it down in the two big counties.

Testing for West Nile is used to guide mosquito abatement efforts. The site of Monday's positive test has already been treated with the larvicide Teaknar. According to the Material Safety Data Sheet, the chemical poses no threat to humans or wildlife, and instead of killing the larvae, the chemical prevents mosquitoes from reaching blood sucking maturity.
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