Monitoring malicious mosquitoes with Dr. Antoinette Ludwig and Marc Avramov. Animal Health Insights, Ep. 24a, June 11, 2024

Mosquitoes – if you live in Canada, you deal with these pesky bugs for a significant portion of the spring and summer. With warming global temperatures, it is likely that we will see a few new varieties of this irritating insect appear in the Canadian airspace, and unfortunately, this also means we have some new vector-borne diseases to deal with.

Mosquitoes carry and help to spread a variety of infectious conditions to a variety of species – so keeping an “eye on the sky” and monitoring their movement, spread, and habitat preferences is important to public health and animal health.

Luckily, Canada has a group of researchers that are working to monitor and study this very thing. Dr. Antoinette Ludwig, a veterinarian and epidemiologist with the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Carleton University PhD candidate Marc Avramov, both study the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and the risk they pose for both human and animal populations, as well as the impact of climate change on these disease patterns. 

Links of Interest:

• Information about Dr. Antoinette Ludwig and her research
• Timo-CS project details
• Relationships between water quality and mosquito presence and abundance: A systematic review and meta-analysis
  • Avramov, Marc & Thaivalappil, Abhinand & Ludwig, Antoinette & Miner, Lauren & Cullingham, Catherine & Waddell, Lisa & Lapen, David. (2023). Relationships between water quality and mosquito presence and abundance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Entomology. 10.1093/jme/tjad139. 
• Information about Marc Avramov and his research