Head of Manatee Mosquito Control not bugged by call to Africa

Mark Latham, after leaving his quiet home in Mill Creek, felt prepared to get his hands dirty in the orange-colored, dusty ground of Africa.

The director of Manatee County Mosquito Control, Latham was asked to contribute his extensive knowledge in September and October to combat mosquitoes that were spreading malaria in Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in western Africa.

It was a job he was born to do.

"From an early age, I had a fascination with 'creepy crawlies,'" said Latham, who grew up in a London suburb.  "I spent lots of time in the woods and heath collecting beetles, butterflies, moths, lizards, snakes and slow worms. My father (Peter Latham) was in the Royal Air Force and we traveled quite a bit, including to Cyprus and Singapore, so I got to see and collect more exotic critters."

After swallowing malaria pills and getting a handful of vaccinations, the 58-year-old Latham began his work Sept. 17 when he arrived in Burkina Faso. His trip marked the beginning of a three-year study on mosquito-transmitted diseases being supported by the Gates Foundation.

He entered an area dominated by flat, hard ground, scrubby trees and goats and cows roaming dirt roads.

It was his first of 16 days in Africa, with a base at the Hotel L'Auberge in Bobo Dioulasso, the second largest city in the country. Five of the days he worked at a test village about an hour outside of Bobo Dioulasso.

"It was basic but comfortable, an oasis from the frantic city outside," Latham said of the hotel. "It was run by a grumpy old French woman, and seemed to be the place to stay or eat if you were a 'European.' There were security guards stationed outside to keep the local panhandlers and street vendors out."

The goal of Latham's trip was to train the local staff and volunteers in a region called Vallee du Kou to work with refillable aerosol cans and back-pack sprayers used in mosquito control.   

“We did a small-scale experiment on three consecutive nights in a village in the rice-growing region of Vallee du Kou just, outside of Bobo Dioulasso where we were based,” Latham said. “We wanted to demonstrate whether their proposed use of aerosol cans to target every male swarm — in one part of the village — was actually better, and used less pesticide, than a general space spray I conducted with the back-pack sprayer in another part of the village.”

While it was a world away from home, Latham felt comfortable.

"I've worked in mosquito control for over 36 years, and most of my work has been geared toward protecting First World residents from mostly nuisance species, with mosquito-borne diseases not being very prevalent in the U.S. in comparison to malarious parts of the world," he said. "I would feel unfulfilled in my profession if I did not lend the expertise I have been grateful to acquire to areas of the world which really suffer from mosquito-borne diseases."

That's not to say that Latham doesn't value his work in Manatee County, because he enjoys it immensely. 

"I love my job because every day is different. As director, I obviously have boring but important administrative responsibilities, but I also get to do fun stuff," Latham said. "Although our primary responsibility as a public service agency is protecting the citizens of Manatee County from both disease-vectoring and pestiferous mosquitoes, we also are able to conduct interesting research projects, both in-house and in collaboration with university scientists."

Though malaria isn’t much of an issue in America, it still persists around the globe, killing millions. In 2015 alone, more than 214 million cases of malaria were reported with an estimated 438,000 deaths. However, since 2000, malaria mortality has dropped 60% throughout the world according to the World Health Organization.

In the United States, people are becoming more familiar with diseases carried by mosquitoes. Zika appears to be gaining its grip on the U.S.

Floridians, however, should know Zika could be a temporary health issue here.

“I don't believe Zika will gain a permanent foothold in the U.S. as it is also a virus that only occurs in humans and a specific mosquito, Aedes aegypti,” he said.

He also doesn't expect malaria to have much of a presence in the U.S.

“It's very unlikely malaria would ever make a comeback because of our lifestyle with air conditioned and screened houses," he said. "We also have relatively low numbers of the U.S. malaria vector — Anopheles quadrimaculatus.” 

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden with infants being burdened most. Latham said his first trip to Africa was eye-opening.

“In a neighboring village just a couple of miles away, two infants died from malaria while we were there,” Latham said. "I think seeing first-hand the struggles people face everyday in Third World countries impacted me most. The scientists we worked with were very dedicated to their jobs, but had access to limited tools, unlike those of us working in the U.S.."

He said Americans are fortunate to have the resources necessary to solve threatening health concerns. In many other countries, particularly Africa, the lack of tools is a clear explanation in terms of why diseases like malaria have yet to be eradicated.  

"We take so much for granted here in the U.S.," he said, noting it would be good for people to see how the rest of the world lives.

When Latham arrived in Africa, his biggest safety concern wasn't even malaria.

“My wife (Charlotte Latham) was concerned about me going, as I was initially, after considering the terrorist attacks. I never felt in danger, and all the locals we met were very friendly,” he said. "But I'm not sure I would want to take family there."

He did get a few surprises.

"Anopheles gambiae was actually much smaller than I expected, smaller than nearly all of our local mosquitoes," Latham wrote. "So small that I was worried that it could squeeze through the netting of the evaluation cages I brought with me." 

He is now home. Due to the poor internet and cellular service in Burkina Faso, he couldn't give his wife, or his three kids — Caroline Latham, 27, and Peter Latham and Alex Latham, 20 — much information while he was away.

"He's always been fascinated by mosquitoes ever since he was a young boy," Charlotte Latham said. "When he travels, I don't always know where he's at, but he's doing exactly what he wants to do, and not everybody gets that opportunity." 

Now it's on to the next project.

"I may be going to Ifakara in Tanzania early next year as a part of this current project, and there is another project in the works looking at a large-scale demonstration project of targeted aerial applications — my expertise — in malaria elimination projects, probably somewhere in Africa again," he said.

Chris Lesser, an assistant director at Manatee County Mosquito Control, laughed at the thought of Latham strategically planning a trip.

“Mark is extremely intelligent, one of the most intelligent, pragmatic people I've ever met," Lesser said. "But he doesn't plan six months in advance for anything. He loves to solve major problems like this (malaria), so these are the exact types of issues he likes to address.”