FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Friday, September 09, 2016
CONTACT:  Lon Kightlinger, (605) 773-3737  

                                                    Annual Mosquito Control Conference October 12

PIERRE, S.D. – Local mosquito control programs are invited to attend this year’s West Nile Virus and Mosquito Control Conference, Oct. 12 in Aberdeen at the Civic Arena, 203 S. Washington St. The conference is open to anyone involved in mosquito control at the city, tribe or county level.

The conference will cover topics ranging from the South Dakota Mosquito Information System to an update on the mosquito-borne viruses of West Nile, Zika and chikungunya. The agenda will also include field demonstrations of mosquito trapping techniques, larviciding calibrations and drones.

Keynote speaker for this year’s conference is Joseph M. Conlon who was commissioned as a Navy medical entomologist in 1981. During his naval career he conducted vector control operations and consultations in 37 different countries worldwide. He retired from the U.S. Navy in 2000 and now serves as the technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA). As technical advisor, Mr. Conlon is responsible for drafting and submitting AMCA regulatory policy documents to local, state and national agencies, including EPA, USDA and USFWS and is a member of EPA’s Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee. He is also a past president of the Virginia Mosquito Control Association and the Mid-American Mosquito Control Association. Conlon regularly appears on national news programs as a scientific expert on Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Florida.  

Registration information for the conference can be found at doh.sd.gov/calendar/. There is no registration fee.

Preventing and controlling infectious disease is one objective of the Department of Health’s 2015-2020 strategic plan, http://doh.sd.gov/strategicplan.

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