One of these health threats is West Nile Virus. When mosquitos infest the area around or inside your home, they get hungry. This is when they bite you to get blood and in turn spread the virus. The virus results in a fever that has the potential to get worse and turn into meningitis. It can be fatal, so anything you can do to prevent mosquito bites is crucial.
Another common health problem that mosquitos cause in California is not for humans, but rather for dogs. If you have a dog, then a mosquito bite could result in it contracting heartworm. Heartworm is a disease that is injected into dogs during the mosquito bite. It results in a worm that can grow up to six to 12 inches living in the dog’s heart and causing potentially fatal problems for its heart and lungs. There are shots that can be given to dogs in order to prevent the contraction of heartworm.
There are other diseases that can be contracted from mosquitos such as Malaria and Encephalitis, but they’re not prevalent to California. One thing that residents of the San Joaquin Valley should watch out for with mosquito bites is infection. If the reaction to a mosquito bite is big enough, then too much scratching can open it up. Depending on the environment you’re in, it could get infected. There are plenty of remedies out there for itchy mosquito bites, so be sure to go for those before aggressively scratching.
Hopefully that answers some of your questions about mosquitos and health problems. The main thing to keep in mind is that no matter how rare a given disease might be among mosquitos in the area, the slight chance that you’ll contract it should be enough to tell you to take action to prevent mosquito bites.