Entomologists are waging a war on our smallest of enemies

Courtesy photo
Dr. Ed Evans, CHPPM entomological sciences program manager, feeds lab mosquitoes to encourage them to continue breeding.

Tucked away in an obscure corner of the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland lies a small, red, brick building. Inside, a team of intrepid civilians and Soldiers spend their days hunting down some of the military's smallest enemies.

From earliest times, lice, fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, flies and other pests have rendered countless military personnel unfit for battle due to the diseases they carry. The Entomological Sciences Program team at the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine at APG has been in the front lines of the war against these tiny terrorists for many years.

Their weapons include everything from pesticides to appropriate methods to treat and wear uniforms-all aimed at finding the best and safest methods to stop the spread of arthropod-borne diseases

Entomologist Dr. Ed Evans, leader of this group for more than two decades, has been at the forefront of his profession in determining what arthropod-borne disease may affect the Soldier, his family and the civilians who support him. Arthropods include insects, spiders and centipedes, as well as some other segmented creatures.

"It doesn't matter if a Soldier is at home in his backyard or in an armed camp in Afghanistan, he is vulnerable to any number of disease-carrying arthropods," he explained.

When West Nile virus first came into the news, groups of military entomologists from CHPPM's headquarters at APG and members of its three continental U.S. subordinate commands assisted installation preventive medicine activities by setting up mosquito traps to
determine the presence of infected mosquitoes and help map the spread of this threat.

They shared this invaluable information with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health services and enabled other scientists to begin work on ways to protect people and animals.

Soldier education, however, is the program's top educational goal.

"One of our major responsibilities is to educate Soldiers about vector-borne diseases and how to protect themselves," according to Evans. "We don't want them to find out about these diseases the hard way."

Part of the education process involves the development of fact sheets that are posted on the CHPPM Web site. These fact sheets explain everything from what types of insect repellents are best and how to use them to explaining about various disease vectors including ticks and mosquitoes.

From Alabama to Zimbabwe arthropod-borne disease threatens the health of military personnel every day, but CHPPM entomologists meet the threat with an array of preventive efforts that reduce the incidence of illness from these small but powerful enemies.
(Editor's note: This story is was originally published in its entirety in January.)