Clark County Begins Sampling for West Nile Virus

Clark County will begin regularly-scheduled sampling next week as two Indiana counties have found mosquitoes with West Nile Virus this year.Clark County hasn’t been collecting regular samples due to budget cuts, said Doug Bentfield, a registered environmental health specialist with the county.“I can say that our complaints are pretty constant, so we have been acting on complaints only so far this year,” he said.The county has gotten a lot of complaints from the Oak Park region in Jeffersonville because of its wetlands, said Bentfield.“This is the time of year when West Nile Virus is actually more active because of the heat. And typically we don’t have a lot of storm water mosquitoes because we haven’t had any rain in some time. So the mosquitoes that are reproducing are the culex pipiens and those do carry West Nile Virus,” he said.The Indiana Department of Health will pay for the sampling tests, but Clark County must pay for the leg-work of collecting the samples. Allen and Hamilton counties have reported two mosquitoes with the virus this year.