MOSQUITO FAUNA AND ARBOVIRUS SURVEILLANCE IN A COASTAL MISSISSIPPI COMMUNITY AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA

Hurricane Katrina caused massive destruction and flooding along the Gulf Coast in August 2005. We collected mosquitoes and tested them for arboviral infection in a severely hurricane-damaged community to determine species composition and to assess the risk of a mosquito-borne epidemic disease in that community about 6 wk after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina. Light-trap collections yielded 8,215 mosquitoes representing 19 species, while limited gravid-trap collections were not productive. The most abundant mosquito species was Culex nigripalpus, which constituted 73.6% of all specimens. No arboviruses were detected in any of the mosquitoes collected in this survey, which did not support the assertion that human risk for arboviral infection was increased in the coastal community 6 wk after the hurricane.