For the first time in 27 years, trucks will spray airborne insecticides in Chicago, targeting areas of the North and South Sides beginning at dusk Sunday to kill mosquitoes that can carry the West Nile virus, officials announced Friday.
The city’s effort is just one more step in the battle to combat a virus that, though still rare, has caused more illnesses in Illinois than in any other state, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Showing how diverse the fight has become, two Orthodox rabbis in Chicago have issued a ruling: Jews who usually are forbidden by religious law to kill animals on the Sabbath and the High Holidays are permitted–actually obligated–to kill mosquitoes. The insects could carry the occasionally life-threatening virus, the rabbis said, and that means Jewish law permits killing them to save a life on the holiest of days.
The attempts to wipe out mosquitoes come as their local population is seeing a late-summer surge after recent torrential rains hatched a bumper crop.
Illinois now leads the nation with 224 West Nile cases and is tied with Louisiana at nine deaths. No new fatalities were reported in Illinois on Friday.
In Chicago, 49 cases have been reported.
Spraying marks a major escalation by the city in its war against mosquitoes, after earlier efforts that included anti-larval treatment of 150,000 curbside catch basins and larvicide applications in park lagoons.
Starting at sundown Sunday–weather permitting–18 trucks operated by Clarke Mosquito Control of Roselle will spray a pesticide called Anvil along streets and alleys in a section of the South Side bounded by the southern city limits, 87th Street, an eastern boundary along Stony Island and Torrence Avenues and the western city limits. The spray area on the North Side is bounded by the city limits, North Avenue, Kimball Avenue and Kilpatrick Avenue, as well as an adjacent irregularly shaped area to the east.
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At dusk Monday, trucks will treat an area on the South Side bordered by 55th Street, 87th Street, Stony Island and the western city limits; and a North Side zone bounded by North Avenue, Kilpatrick Avenue and the city’s northern and western borders.
The areas were targeted “based on surveillance–looking at where the cases [of infection] are and where the clusters of … mosquitoes are,” said Dr. John Wilhelm, the city’s health commissioner.
The Sunday and Monday operations should be completed by dawn of the next day, officials said, though a second application could be necessary later in the week. The dusk-to-dawn period is the peak time of activity for the northern house mosquito, a major carrier of the West Nile virus, officials said.
The operation represents the first spraying in Chicago since 1975, when the city was hit by an outbreak of mosquito-borne St. Louis encephalitis.
Anvil has been in use for more than 25 years, officials said. It is a synthetic similar to a naturally occurring pesticide produced by chrysanthemum flowers, and it is applied at very low concentrations, about one tablespoon for application over an acre of land, they said.
It is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency “and is quite commonly used around the country,” said Dr. William Paul, a deputy city health commissioner. “It is not new and scary…. If this were a highly toxic substance, if it were dangerous, we wouldn’t be using it at all.”
Still, a top city Health Department official, Dr. Joel McCullough, acknowledged that “no pesticide is risk-free.”
Anvil “has very low toxicity to mammals, humans and pets,” but he said that residents in the spray zones should go inside when they see the trucks coming and close their windows and doors. That advice applies particularly to people with chronic diseases such as asthma, McCullough said.
The rabbinical ruling on mosquitoes was prompted by calls from Jews asking if they could kill the insects on the Sabbath and the High Holidays, said Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, an administrator at the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began Friday at sundown. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, will begin Sept. 15 at sundown.
“The idea of being able to kill something on Yom Kippur is mind-boggling,” Fishbane said. “To say that not only are you permitted, but you are obligated to go ahead on the Sabbath and on Yom Kippur is a sign of the times. It shows the sensitivity of rabbis in adapting the law to the issues of the times and not compromising on the word of God.”
Meanwhile, a California woman has tested positive for the West Nile virus in what could be the first human case contracted in the western United States, health officials said Friday in announcing preliminary test results. Conclusive results won’t be known for another week, but the case suggests the virus may have completed its journey across the continent.
The woman, who was not identified, became sick in August from meningitis, which is associated with the virus. She has recovered.