Topic: Community Prevention Project in Virginia

Community Prevention Project
Name
Institution
Community Prevention Project
Introduction
The adverse repercussions of the proliferation of vector-borne diseases to the social, economic, and even political aspects of the society demand the implementation of appropriate measures to deal with the menace. Both the preventive and interventional measures have to be put in place to maintain the community’s well-being for increased productivity and the development of the society as a whole. It is for the outlined reasons that the state of Virginia, through its Department of Health, is on constant alert to protect and prevent its constituents from the harmful effects of vector-borne diseases. Vector-borne diseases refer to the pathogens transmitted to human beings through a wide range of arthropods with blood-sucking abilities. The disease-carrying pathogens commonly found in the state of Virginia and around the United States include mosquitoes, ticks, mites, lice, and fleas. Mosquitoes and ticks are the main blood-sucking arthropods associated with the transmission of a wide range of vector-borne diseases or pathogens in the state of Virginia and its environs. The health concerns facing the Virginia community as a whole include Malaria, Dengue Fever, West Nile Virus, and the Eastern equine encephalitis which are transmitted through various species of Mosquitoes. The other vector-borne diseases raising a health concern for the community are the Lyme Disease and the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever transmitted by through ticks. The project seeks to identify the factors contributing to the increase in the population of both ticks and mosquitoes, the specific health concerns transmitted by the insects, analyzing the existing public interventional and preventive measures while also recommending an enhanced approach for addressing the community health concerns.
Health Concerns of the Community
The state of Virginia has a high population of two main disease-carrying vectors, Mosquitoes, and Ticks. The health concerns associated with the two vectors include Malaria, Dengue Fever, West Nile Virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, Lyme Disease, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (Roanoke, 2018). Malaria is a parasitic vector-borne pathogen transmitted to human beings through the Anopheles mosquitoes, while both Dengue Fever and the West Nile Fever are viral pathogens transmitted through different species of mosquitoes such as the Culex mosquito for the latter (Cole, 2014). Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, on the other hand, are tick-borne disease posing a health concern for the community. The former is a bacterial pathogen transmitted by both the Ixodes scapularis and Ixodes ricinus species of ticks while the latter spread through a range of ticks (Sedda, 2014). Increase in the population of both the mosquitoes and ticks shows a strong correlation with the outbreak and spread of the vector-borne diseases in Virginia and thus raising a range of health concerns to the community (Cole, 2014). Environmental factors such as the existence swamps in the coastal regions of Virginia, stagnant pools of water during the rainy season coupled with climatic changes in the atmospheric temperatures provide conducive environments for the inc...