West Nile virus detected in Phillips, Blaine and Valley

West Nile Virus (WNV) was detected in groups of mosquitoes collected from Terry (Prairie County) and Bowdoin Wildlife Refuge east of Malta (Phillips County) in mid-July, 2016. Since then, several more groups of mosquitoes have been found positive for WNV from these two counties. Positive mosquitoes were collected last week from Blaine and Valley Counties. Recently there was a report of two presumptive human cases from Dawson County, which are awaiting laboratory confirmation.

WNV is mosquito transmitted; the primary vector in Montana is Culex tarsalis. The distribution map below shows that whi...