Due to outbreaks of tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus) at various places in the Netherlands, Bart was asked to appear on the Dutch talk show “Knevel en van de Brink”.
http://www.eo.nl//tv/knevelenvandenbrink/artikel-detail/bart-knols-1/
He was able to explain how these mosquitoes enter the Netherlands and what the possible dangers are. He also was given time to show the In2Trap, a tool that targets especialy this mosquito.
On Friday 2nd of August a fourth occurrence of tiger mosquitoes was reported in the Netherlands. All four cases were reported at companies importing used tires from foreign countries. In some of these countries tiger mosquitoes are present. They lay their eggs in the black tires when their is water in them. If the water dries up, the eggs are still present and can survive in this state for 6-9 months. Once the tires reach the Netherlands and rain pours into the tires again, the eggs will hatch and tiger mosquitoes are flying around. For the last 4 years reports indicate tiger mosquito emergence takes place in the Netherlands.
The danger of this mosquito species is that it is capable of transmitting 20 or more viruses like Dengue, Chikungunya, Yellow Fever, West-Nile, Usutu,… For some of these diseases no medicines and no vaccines are present. Thus, you can only ease the pain and symptoms once infected and some of these diseases can even lead to the death of a person.
Global warming increases the areas where this mosquito can survive and settle but more importantly global transport increases the chances of both vector (the mosquito) and disease (in people travelling from and to disease endemic countries) to expand beyond their territories. Incidences like this have already taken place in Europe. In 2007 there was an outbreak of chikungunya in Italy after an Indian traveler infected with the virus visited his family in Italy. Because the tiger mosquito had already settled in that area, he was bitten and the virus was transferred to multiple persons leading to the outbreak.
More recently (2012) a similar event happened in Madera, Portugal. The mosquito had already settled on the island since 2005 and now a traveler with Dengue had visited the island. Within a month more then 2000 persons were infected with dengue according to reports from various Health services of countries like the UK and Sweden whose citizens went on vacation to Madera.
Thus even though the threat is low at the moment in the Netherlands preventing this mosquito species from settling here in of high importance.