Rudman's city: Time to wage all-out war on those Aussie bloodsuckers

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Health Minister Annette King and her officials are agonising about whether or not to blat the Aussie mozzie invaders.

I say go for it, with all the firepower she can muster. Bring in the Skyhawks loaded with napalm, if that's what it takes. Just get rid of them.

A summer trying to deal with the dozen local varieties has been bad enough. And these southern saltmarsh illegals sound even worse.

We're told we should fear them because they have the ability to spread the debilitating Ross River virus. Forget the virus, it's the mozzie and its hypodermic syringe that scares me.

At least the local variety has the decency to come sucking my blood only at dusk. The new invader brazenly strikes during the day and is, health experts say, "an aggressive biter."

I think we have enough aggressive native biters around already without having to put up with transtasman interlopers.

If Mrs King thinks I exaggerate, she's welcome to pop round of an evening and run the gauntlet with the kitchen scraps down to my compost heap.

By the time she's back inside, I reckon she'll agree the only good mozzie is a dead one, native or otherwise. That's unless she's mastered the trick of holding her breath for the entire journey there and back.

For short of smearing yourself with repellent, or studding the property with burning coils, the only way to avoid mozzies is to stop breathing. Well, that's what I recall celebrity bug man Ruud Kleinpaste once telling me. He says mosquitoes find their warm-blooded targets by following the trail of exhaled carbon dioxide. Don't breathe out and you're safe. A short-term solution at best, I fear.

As you read this the invaders are building up their forces in the Kaipara salt marshes in preparation for their invasion of Auckland. Now is the time for a pre-emptive strike.

The successful eradication of the white spotted tussock moth from Auckland's eastern suburbs in 1996-97 shows that an aerial spraying programme works. And that was to save trees, not humans.

It was also more problematic, involving the repeat spraying of suburban Auckland.

Presumably the flat and uninhabited swamp lands of the Kaipara create fewer problems.

As with the tussock moth, there is a bacterial spray, Bti, which is toxic to sandflies, mosquito larvae and some species of midge.

In Napier, where the southern saltmarsh mosquito appears to have been eradicated following its appearance in December 1998, Bti was used in conjunction with S-methoprene, which is an insect growth regulator that stops the mosquito pupae hatching into adults.

After their appearance in Napier, new outbreaks were found in Gisborne and Porongahau and Mahia in Hawkes Bay. S-methoprene is being used at these sites.

The spread up-country to the Kaipara Harbour was discovered on February 18. A technical advisory group has been set up to advise the minister.

It might be costly - the white tussock eradication cost around $9 million - but what other realistic option does the minister have?

This beastie not only promises to be a proper pain in the arm, neck, ankle and whatever exposed part of the body it descends on.

It is also a potential health hazard. More than 100 people a year turn up in New Zealand with the Ross River virus. Our native mosquitoes cannot spread this disease. The newcomer can.

Health Department papers estimate that an initial epidemic in Auckland among people with no natural resistance could infect 120,000 people and cost $100 million in health costs. Further outbreaks could cost another $44 million in health costs every three to five years.

With those sorts of figures, it's time to eliminate these pests now.

And if they have any spray left over, they are more than welcome to drop in over my place and see how it works on the natives.