Four UNM biology students are playing a significant role in understanding and preventing West Nile virus in Albuquerque, all while getting paid and earning college credit.
The students, all undergraduates, are participating in the Albuquerque Environmental Health Department's Bio-Disease Management program.
Considering the city's strapped budget, the students' contributions have been invaluable, said Rudy Bueno, Albuquerque's environmental health supervisor.
"If it weren't for the students' assistance, we'd be very limited in what we could accomplish," Bueno said. "We have between 17 and 25 survey sites in Albuquerque, and without the students, we'd only be able to maintain three or four."
The students set up about 32 mosquito traps throughout the Rio Grande Valley each week during the summer months, said senior Josephine Molina, who joined the program about four months ago.
Trapped mosquitoes are sent to a lab at the health department where they are studied, Molina said.
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Symptoms of the West Nile virus, which is most commonly spread by mosquitoes, in its mild form include fever, headache and a skin rash on the body's torso. Advanced cases lead to meningitis and encephalitis and can be fatal.
Bueno said the program's goals include tracking the virus through the state to determine patterns of how the disease is transmitted.
Students are also studying which kinds of mosquitoes carry the virus.
"By getting that information we can implement better controls on the disease in humans and animals," Bueno said.
Students working in the program are allowed to work full-time during the summer and 15 to 20 hours a week in the spring and fall semesters, he said. They are paid between $8 and $9 an hour, depending on their experience.
The National Science Foundation funds the program with a $50,000 annual grant.
Molina is also earning three college credit hours for her work in the program, by way of a biology course, she said. The class counts as an elective.
UNM senior Elizabeth Hatton said entomology, the study of insects, was not her specialty area before she joined the program.
"By this time in your biology degree, you're supposed to know your specialty," Hatton said. "I was kind of lost. This really focused my interest in entomology."
For her part, Hatton studies mosquito larvae. She finds them anywhere there's standing water, notorious breeding grounds for the insects, collects them and identifies what species they are.
First among Hatton's goals is to better understand the ecology of mosquitoes, she said. That understanding can lead to saving the state money and protecting the environment.
Hatton said if additional funding becomes available, she hopes to study whether adult mosquitoes can pass the virus to their offspring.
"Conventional wisdom says the larvae have to pick it up from a host," she said. "But no one knows that for sure."
The program runs year-round, with the summer months dedicated to fieldwork, Hatton said.
"We do a lot of walking around in the mud getting bitten by mosquitoes," she said. "In the winter we do more lab work, but it's just as busy."
Bueno said he has worked with at least eight UNM students on environmental health programs since 1999.
