Mosquito-borne virus keeps towns on alert

MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — In this wet, low-lying town, the football team ends practice before 6 p.m. In Holbrook, the high school's playing fields are protected by bug-zapping Mosquito Magnets. And in Brockton, landscapers are being urged to slather themselves with insect spray at least twice a day.

With three cases of Eastern equine encephalitis now confirmed in the state, including a 9-year-old Middleborough boy in critical condition, jittery residents across southeastern Massachusetts are struggling to defend themselves against a ubiquitous foe that they can see, hear and feel, but not completely avoid.

"I think we're all concerned. It's a different world," said Allison J. Ferreira, the assistant to the Middleborough town manager.

Apprehension in the community, which calls itself the "cranberry capital of the world," escalated after John Fontaine, 9, collapsed at football practice Aug. 19. A meeting for the parents of 300 children enrolled in the youth-football league was scheduled for last evening, after health officials Monday confirmed his illness as the latest case of the disease.

Town Manager John F. Healey said concern about the mosquito-borne virus is the most intense he's seen in 21 years on the job. "People are being much more cautious," Healey said. "They're curtailing activities in the dusk period, and pretty much everything's been shut down."

With the height of mosquito season in the last two weeks in August, precautions were being taken in communities throughout the area. In Pembroke, officials were determining if they should curtail nighttime activities involving children. Parents of school athletes in several towns are being asked to give permission for their children to use DEET during outdoor practices. The Boy Scouts posted a note on its website seeking to reassure parents in the area that Camp Norse in Kingston had been sprayed.

The Plymouth County Mosquito Control Project, which responds to individual requests to spray homes, has received a record number of complaints this year, officials said. Since May, the office has received 12,200 requests for spraying, an increase of 3,500 through the same time in 2005, said project superintendent Ray Zucker. Zucker thinks public awareness is on the rise.

"Last year with EEE activity, we had two deaths and we didn't have the number of spray requests that we had this year," said Zucker, whose agency collects mosquitos killed by aerial spraying and sends them to the state Department of Public Health for screening.