By DON AINES
Staff Writer, Martinsburg
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Although no cases of LaCrosse encephalitis have been reported in the Eastern Panhandle, the Berkeley County Health Department recently assisted the Centers for Disease Control in a project to determine if the virus is present here.
Twila Carr, an environmental health supervisor with the county health department, said mosquito egg traps were set in two wooded areas of the county on Aug. 19. The 20 traps were collected a week later and sent on to the CDC.
"It won't be done for months," Dr. Roger Nasci of the CDC's Arbovirus Diseases Branch said of the testing program. The eggs will have to be hatched and then raised to adulthood. The species of the mosquitoes will then be determined to see if any treehole mosquitoes are among them.