Jose Guerrero 
BROWNSVILLE – If you’ve heard these sounds before you know that mosquito season is back, which means the bloodthirsty parasites are out to eat.
We spoke with Dr. Cristel Escalona the medical director of student health at UTRGV, and asked her about why there are so many mosquitoes flooding the Valley.
“Well so anytime that there’s an increased amount of rain, there’s increased opportunity for mosquitoes to breed and so since there’s alot of mosquitos they are looking for a bite to eat, and unfortunately we are food for them.If pots or like tires, or things that can hold water that are laying around. If its got standing water in it, it will totally breed a mosquito,” said Escalona.
We then asked Dr. Escalona about what illnesses we could contract from a mosquito bite.
“So people scratch at the mosquito bite, the germs underneath their fingernails dig beneath your skin, set up an infection, and then you can get something called an abscess which is like a pus pocket. So believe it or not that’s the most common thing you can get from an insect bite, and then you can also get like malaria. You can get West Nile Virus and Zika, of course, famously, and of course, it’s a lot less likely that you’ll get that then the infected insect bite that I was telling you about its still a possibility. If you’re not feeling well, you should absolutely get checked out and you can get checked out at our Student Health Care Clinic in Brownsville or here in Edinburg,” she continued.
We then asked students about their thoughts on mosquitoes.
“I don’t like mosquitoes, I always get bit…like to me they don’t benefit me, because like I’m the one getting stung by them,” said student Demian Rodriguez.
“I don’t like mosquitoes because there’s a lot of diseases involving mosquitoes, like malaria, Zika…you go outside and you just want to have a fun day, and eat outside and the mosquitoes are there biting you and it’s very annoying, so that’s why I don’t like them.,” said student Karla Gonzalez.
Dr. Escalona also recommends wearing protective clothing and using products with deet in them.
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