Getting bitten by a mosquito is more often than not annoying and uncomfortable, but it could also lead to more serious conditions due to the diseases they can carry.
On Thursday Northern Nevada Public Health used a helicopter to help with mosquito treatment in south Reno.
They dropped a salt like granular formation into the water ways.
However, the solution isn't targeted towards adult mosquitoes, rather for mosquito larvae.
Those live in the water and are the second stage of a mosquito's life cycle.
"This one here is intended to catch early mosquito larvae development and prevent them becoming active adults and biting humans," said Wesley Rubio, EHS Supervisor for Northern Nevada Public Health.
The helicopter treatment has been used for more than 30 years.
The reason the work is so important is because mosquitoes can carry deadly diseases.
"So we have in the environment, West Nile, St. Louis Encephalitis, and Western Equine," Rubio said. "Those ones are here, they've been here for decades. Our job is to try and prevent those becoming established annually."
Those diseases can cause people to become very ill and can even cause death in some instances.
That's why they start treatments early in the year to try and best prevent things from turning worse.
"We start early to try and catch as much of the water ways when it's high water, as much as possible to try and have the greatest impact on the mosquito populations up front," Rubio said.
The helicopter also makes it much more efficient versus using ground techniques.
"We're treating close to 800 acres every time we do this," Rubio said. "You know we started at six in the morning and we'll probably finish around 10:30 or 11. Trying to do that by hand we couldn't access most of the areas anyways."
While the helicopter can cover a lot of acres, it's not 100 percent effective and can't take away all the mosquitoes.
So, they recommend that people use bug spray, wear long sleeves and avoid early mornings and nights if you're around them.
