A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
This week is the unofficial start of summer, but along with the fun in the sun comes the very less fun threat of bug bites. Now, for tips and insight on how to keep you and your loved ones best protected, we called up Dan Gruner. He's an entomologist who teaches at the University of Maryland. So, Dan, what would be the best way for people to protect themselves both at home and also on their own bodies?
DAN GRUNER: Well, first, don't panic. The best way to protect ourselves from them is to, first, cover up, wearing light-colored clothing, long pants and sleeves. And it's really OK to go out in grassy brushy areas and just make sure that you do the essential habit of doing tick checks once you're back indoors.
MARTÍNEZ: Tick checks. How often should that happen?
GRUNER: It should happen every day you go out. You should make it a habit to check for ticks, including those - all those crevices where the sun doesn't often shine. That's where the ticks like to hide. If you find them, you want to use a tweezers to gently pull them off, straight without twisting. And just watch that area, see if it starts to look like it's developing a rash or something. But you still have 24 hours before they really get embedded and start to exchange fluids. So you still got time. Just keep an eye on it, and then you can go to a doctor if you need to. There are repellents that you can use, like DEET and picaridin. You can also treat your shoes and your socks and your pants with some permethrin, which will - you put on your pants on the night before, and that'll protect you for weeks using those clothes. With ticks, we do need to worry about Lyme disease. There is Rocky Mountain fever and ehrlichiosis. There's also an alpha-gal syndrome, that's not that well understood, which causes an allergy to red meat.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So that's ticks. What about mosquitoes, especially when you're at home?
GRUNER: Yeah. You want to close the windows and doors if you're indoors or use screens. Day-biting mosquitoes are the ones that could potentially transmit dengue, Zika, chikungunya. And then it's the Culex mosquitoes that bite after dark that potentially could have West Nile.
MARTÍNEZ: One of the things, Dan, that I'd heard about mosquitoes, especially at home, is to every once in a while walk around, especially maybe in your backyard or right in your front porch, to make sure there's no standing water. Why is that something that someone should do?
GRUNER: Most of these mosquitoes, they can breed in the tiniest amount of stagnant water, the size of a bottle cap. So if you have toys out in the yard that might collect water or you have plugged gutters, any of these structures can provide plenty of water for them to breed in.
MARTÍNEZ: How does climate change impact the mosquito population?
GRUNER: Climate change is expected to increase the incidence and prevalence of all these vector-borne diseases. We have rising temperatures, which gives us longer growing seasons so that they can bite more days throughout the year - also, changing rainfall patterns. So we might have extreme weather events or just more rainfall, which can provide more habitat for mosquitoes to breed, and we see - even with droughts - that can increase breeding opportunities because you have stagnant pools developing where you once had flowing water.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Dan Gruner, professor of entomology at the University of Maryland. Dan, thanks.
GRUNER: Thank you, A.
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