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Flying menace

pockets of virus-carrying mosquitoes have swarmed large areas of New England in north-east us . Alert public health officials who spotted the sudden spurt in mosquito population are now doubling efforts to contain the spread. What is causing alarm is that these mosquitoes are infected with potentially deadly viruses which could cause diseases like the eastern equine encephalitis ( eee ), a brain infection deadly to horses, humans and a few other animals.

A disturbed Theodore Andreadis, chief research entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, observed, "What is really unprecedented is that they (virus isolations) are not just being found in the swamps but from mosquitoes in residential areas as well.'

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