Marion Public Health conducts many different activities to prevent mosquito borne disease transmission. These activities include: educational efforts to inform the public of the risks that mosquitoes present via press releases, billboards and radio interviews; county wide adult mosquito surveillance, partnering with the Marion City Parks Department for adulticiding (spraying/fogging) within the City of Marion; providing all townships and villages larvicides to target larvae in their breeding habitat before they can mature and disperse; source reduction activities (tire cleanups, encouraging community members to eliminate standing water in flower pots, garbage/recycling bins, rain gutters and the like).
Marion Public Health has been funded through the Ohio EPA Mosquito Control Grant to maintain a surveillance and control program since 2016. This funding was made available to health departments and related public entities to use for surveillance and the application of mosquito control measures in support of the Ohio Department of Health’s (ODH) efforts to mitigate the potential for an outbreak of mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika, West Nile and La Cross Encephalitis.
