From Las Cruses Sun News
March 9, 2019
LAS CRUCES – New Mexico State University researchers collaborating with the New Mexico Department of Health recently published a paper that shows there is widespread resistance to insecticides in one type of mosquito found in southern New Mexico — Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito.
Researchers say insecticide resistance is a serious problem, which evolves in insect populations when they are repeatedly exposed to the same type of insecticide or insecticides. This resistance can undermine public health efforts. This study characterized for the first time insecticide resistance of the yellow fever mosquito across its range in New Mexico.
“With climate change, New Mexico will increasingly be seeing mosquito-borne disease,” said NMDOH State Epidemiologist Michael Landen. “This paper provides an important warning of how insecticide resistance in the state will complicate our ability to control these diseases and that we need to work on alternatives.”