West Nile Is Back — and This Time It's in the Harvest Neighborhood

If you live in or near Harvest, you don't need to wait for August to start worrying about West Nile. The season is already here.

Denton County Public Health announced a mosquito trap in the northwest portion of the Harvest community tested positive for West Nile Virus. The trap is located at the intersection of Cleveland-Gibbs Road and Old Justin Road. That's well inside the neighborhood — not some distant drainage ditch along the county line.

In response, DCPH will conduct fogging in the area three times, beginning Saturday and continuing through Friday, June 26. The truck-based, ultra-low volume fogging will occur between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. So if you're in the fog zone and you notice a truck rolling your street late at night this week, that's the county doing its job. Close the windows. Stay in. That's it.

The Harvest trap is one of two near Argyle that tested positive for WNV — the other was located along Hwy 377 at the end of May. One of the first traps to test positive this mosquito season in southern Denton County was over in Lewisville at the beginning of May. The virus has been working its way toward Flower Mound all season. Now it's here.

One detection is not an epidemic. But it does mean the virus is actively circulating in local mosquitoes right now — and cases are mostly prevalent from summer to early fall, with August being one of the most active months according to CDC data. This is the front end of that window.

What to do today. Drain standing water in your yard and neighborhood to minimize mosquito breeding sites such as bird baths, flowerpots, and clogged rain gutters. Don't stop there — check pet bowls left outside, old tires, boat covers, anything that held rain. Rainfall can boost breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which only need as little as a bottle cap-size pool of stagnant water to reproduce. For water you can't drain, consider the use of BTI briquettes, often called mosquito dunks, in standing water that cannot be eliminated. Flower Mound is one of a few places to offer free mosquito dunks to residents — check with the town directly on pickup locations and availability.

For your evening walks and backyard time: dress in long sleeves and pants when outside, spray thin clothing with repellent, and use an EPA-registered repellent — look for ingredients like DEET, Picaridin, or Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus. Dawn and dusk are the highest-risk windows. If you're watching the kids play soccer at dusk, they should have repellent on.

Know the risk honestly. About 1 in 5 people who contract West Nile virus will develop symptoms, according to the CDC. Most of those are mild — fever, headache, body aches. The CDC reports West Nile neuroinvasive disease affects less than 1% of people who become infected, and typically manifests as meningitis, encephalitis, or acute flaccid myelitis. Rare. But real. There's no vaccine and no cure. Prevention is the whole game.

People over 50, those with weakened immune systems, and very young children face higher risk of severe illness if infected. If you're in that group — or someone in your household is — take the precautions seriously, not casually.

Watch the county's updates. Detailed maps of fog areas are located on the DCPH West Nile Virus website at DentonCounty.gov/WNV, along with additional information including mosquito maps, latest news, and facts about WNV. If the trap count climbs, more fogging follows. The county has done this before — last season it ran multiple rounds across southern Denton County as the summer progressed. Stay on the map.