The result was
an epidemic of Asiatic cholera with about half a million cases and many thousands of
deaths[18].In the early 1980s, Aedes
albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito, entered Texas and Louisiana as larvae in pools
of water in a shipment of used car tires, imported from the Philippines for retreading.
The Asian tiger mosquito is very hardy. It survives cold winters and breeds in what
golfers call "casual water" -- almost any body of water larger than a
tablespoonful. It found an ecological niche, and rapidly spread along the eastern seaboard
of the USA, into the Midwest, and up to and beyond the Canadian border. It has also
expanded into new European territories [19].
The Asian tiger mosquito is an efficient vector for some dangerous diseases, including
hemorrhagic dengue which resembles yellow fever but for which there is no vaccine, and
several types of virus encephalitis. So far there have been a few cases only. But this is
an epidemic, several epidemics, waiting to happen. We have almost no effective
countermeasures against hemorrhagic dengue, or against many forms of viral encephalitis.
