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Bexar County Launches Fight Against Zika Virus Early

Although there are no confirmed cases of mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus in Bexar County, the Department of Public Works is taking no chances. 

"We started our program early this year," says Renee Green, the director of public works for Bexar County. "We’re stepping up our larvacide treatments, and we’ve also got two different traps that we’re working with the state on. Both traps we’ll use to collect mosquitoes and send them to the state for testing, as well as give us an indication of where we might see high concentrations of mosquitoes."

Credit James Gathany / CDC
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CDC

Green says the county hopes to set traps in the next two weeks, and that fogging for mosquitoes will begin a month early on April 1. 

Louisa Jonas is an independent public radio producer, environmental writer, and radio production teacher based in Baltimore. She is thrilled to have been a PRX STEM Story Project recipient for which she produced a piece about periodical cicadas. Her work includes documentaries about spawning horseshoe crabs and migratory shorebirds aired on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. Louisa previously worked as the podcast producer at WYPR 88.1FM in Baltimore. There she created and produced two documentary podcast series: Natural Maryland and Ascending: Baltimore School for the Arts. The Nature Conservancy selected her documentaries for their podcast Nature Stories. She has also produced for the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Distillations Podcast. Louisa is editor of the book Backyard Carolina: Two Decades of Public Radio Commentary. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her training also includes journalism fellowships from the Science Literacy Project and the Knight Digital Media Center, both in Berkeley, CA. Most recently she received a journalism fellowship through Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she traveled to Toolik Field Station in Arctic Alaska to study climate change. In addition to her work as an independent producer, she teaches radio production classes at Howard Community College to a great group of budding journalists. She has worked as an environmental educator and canoe instructor but has yet to convince a great blue heron to squawk for her microphone…she remains undeterred.