To assist jurisdictions impacted by Hurricanes Ian and Fiona, NACCHO was able to launch a special Hurricane Crisis cohort of the Vector Control Collaborative (NACCHO’s long running mentorship program in vector control) in 2024. The following story is from this cohort’s mentee, Pender County Health Department, NC. To see more details about the VCC programs in 2024, click here. This post was written by PCHD’s Ben Kane, [email protected], 910-259-1233. This blog is Pender County’s account of the challenges and opportunities they faced through the VCC. To get PCHD’s mentor’s perspective, see this post: https://www.naccho.org/blog/articles/amcd-vcc-story-2024.

By national standards, Pender County has a small vector control program, [but] we do have a larvicide and adulticide program that runs from March through October.

Being part of [NACCHO’s Vector Control Collaborative (VCC)] program has shown me personally that even though doing this job for 25 plus years and being open to new technologies, I still had—and have—lots to learn; and I hope others see this and become part of the VCC program and enter with open eyes and an open mind.

Challenges with Mosquito Control Capacity

The major problem [Pender County] identified was lack of surveillance; we had [mosquito] traps but not enough. We purchased more traps—not enough yet but each year we will add to our numbers. I didn’t know it at the time but our storage building needed safety modifications such as labels for each type of chemical and what is coming out and going in.

Being part of [NACCHO’s Vector Control Collaborative (VCC)] program has shown me personally that even though doing this job for 25 plus years and being open to new technologies, I still had—and have—lots to learn; and I hope others see this and become part of the VCC program and enter with open eyes and an open mind.

– Ben Kane, Pender County Health Department

Our biggest problem that was identified was lack of surveillance and identifying mosquitoes. We are supported by our local government and on a very small scale by the State of NC.

I developed the program to what it is today, and the program is still growing and will grow under [PCHD staff] Amanda. The problems [that] we did face we are working on; we already purchased more traps and Amanda is self-teaching to ID Mosquitoes while waiting for classes to become available, while also sending other employees to the same classes.

Lessons Learned

I learned [from this VCC cohort] that an old dog can still learn new tricks. This [VCC] program teaches that smaller programs can be run more efficiently and can learn that there are other techniques that work. One of the first things we purchased were three Tomlov digital microscopes. We use these for educational purposes in classrooms and for identifying mosquitoes. The best insight that I can share with anyone is the [VCC] program does help educate and make your program better—just listen to all parties involved, because they all want to make your program better with what you have to work with.