Wet summer breeding more mosquitoes

Beijing residents may be seeing more mosquitoes during this unusually wet summer and people living in residential communities are likely to suffer the most from the increase in the insects' population, authorities said.

By the end of June, about 0.65 mosquito was being caught every hour by a special lamp that attracts insects and uses electricity to kill them, an increase of 16 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by the Beijing Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention on Monday.

The report also said more mosquitoes were caught in the latter part of June than were in the beginning, showing the number of mosquitoes in Beijing is likely to increase greatly in the coming days, especially in later July and August, which are usually the months when mosquitoes are most prevalent.

Residents of Beijing communities are seeing the largest numbers of the insects. In such places, roughly one mosquito is being caught by the special lamps every hour.

"The fact that there are more mosquitoes in Beijing than in previous years may have something to do with the larger rainfall this year," Zeng Xiaopeng, an official from the center, was quoted by the local newspaper Mirror Evening News, as saying.

"The many bottles and cans that are laying out in these communities are perfect breeding places for mosquitoes and residents living in such places are therefore suffering more."

Because of the larger number of mosquitoes, Beijing hospitals have recently been treating more dermatitis patients. The Capital Institute of Pediatrics said about 600 patients with dermatitis came to its dermatology clinic during those days, a quarter of which contracted the condition after being bitten by mosquitoes.