WJR Interview Zika Virus Michigan

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Transcript:

Paul W. Smith:
An unprecedented warning, over the Miami Zika outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented travel warning advising pregnant women and their partners not to travel to a small community just north of downtown Miami where Zika is actively circulating.

So we go to the pros from Rose, Mark Sheperdigian. Who is here to tell us what we need to be concerned about, or not concerned about. I added the word overly to some of the commercials I've had for Rose talking about mosquitoes, not to be overly concerned. But you have to be concerned Mark, you admit that now?

Mark Sheperdigian:
Yeah I know you're right, you're absolutely right, don't be overly concerned you should always be concerned because mosquitoes do and always have carried diseases. Not all of them, just some of them and the diseases are bad so you need to be careful.

Paul W. Smith:
I know you are not the kind of guy that would ever kill a bug if you could avoid killing a bug you would. But are there good reasons to have mosquitoes?

Mark Sheperdigian:
There are a lot of different mosquitoes out there and some of them play a role in the ecosystem that’s good to have around...Others we could do without. That’s probably a controversial opinion to hold. In fact, our ecosystem is a web of animals and organisms that where one stops, others fill in. The mosquito that transmits the Zika virus is very tightly tied to humans and generally, you don't find them where humans are not abundant, so we would do well to be able to get rid of it.

Paul W. Smith:
You know the question people ask me is how is it that they can have a travel advisory that is so specific to a neighborhood? I guess what they're banking on is this mosquito that you just mentioned that I'm not going to try to name this thing, doesn't fly very far in its lifetime.

Mark Sheperdigian:
That makes it possible to issue a travel advisory for a very small area. They are just right there where they breed and as I said they are very tightly tied to humans so it’s there in the neighborhood there and up in a particular area and its Aedes Aegypti the yellow fever mosquito that they're most concerned about.

Paul W. Smith:
What is the name of it again?

Mark Sheperdigian:
It’s Aedes Aegypti.

Paul W. Smith:
Aedes Aegypti?

There ya go. It’s Latin.

Paul W. Smith:
Wow, and what should we do around our house because I believe there is absolutely no question that Zika will be here.

Mark Sheperdigian:
Zika will come into Michigan with people who got it, but what isn’t here is Aedes Aegypti! We don't have that mosquito. There's another mosquito that's been implicated and we don’t have it either! So here in Michigan we have a few things going for us. We do have mosquitoes that bite and transmit some diseases it's been postulated, guessed at, that perhaps some of these mosquitoes may transmit Zika, but so far the studies that have been looking at that have shown that the mosquitoes they have looked at don’t do it. So that news is good.

Paul W. Smith:
You know it’s something to see and I don't see many medical studies coming out of China, but here's a story that has come through that says every week scientists in southern China release 3 million bacteria-infected mosquitoes in a bid to wipe out diseases such as Dengue, Yellow Fever, and Zika. What do you know? Anything about that?

Mark Sheperdigian:
Yeah they have little organisms that live inside of insects and if you manipulate them it changes the way the mosquitoes survive and if you can actually manipulate those little organisms you could take the population out. It’s still open whether we can do that effectively, they’ve been around a long time and they are not defenseless to this sort of thing. But it certainly is interesting to see how they come up with that kind of technology.

Paul W. Smith:
Well our own news director at WJR was talking a bit ago but it’s almost like mosquito birth control and this might be a part of it, is this bacteria that the Chinese are sending out there in those mosquitoes occurs naturally in about 28% of wild mosquitoes and it causes infected males to sterilize the females they mate with and in his report they were working on a chemical or a drug that, as delicately as I can put it, sterilizes the male mosquitoes and eventually there would be no more mosquitoes.

Mark Sheperdigian:
Male mosquitoes do not bite people. So here we go the good half of the population is the one that's going to be the one to bear the brunt of that, that’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?

Paul W. Smith:
It's not the first time the male bears the brunt of the result of technology. All right so anything else, we need to know before we let you go Shep?

Mark Sheperdigian:
Sure, of all the stories out there...don't be overly concerned. Let's not panic here in Michigan anyway, we have very little to be concerned about. Zika itself is of most concern to developing embryos so pregnant women or women who may become pregnant have the most concerns and should probably not visit pandemic areas at this point. Other than that don't let mosquitoes bite you, take steps and if you have too much trouble give us a call.

Paul W. Smith:
Contact the Pros from Rose.

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