[(ON THE NECESSITY AND WAYS TO IMPROVE ENTOMOLOGICAL MONITORING IN THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE FOR WEST NILE FEVER)].

West Nile fever (WNF) is a natural focal vector-borne disease; the main vectors are mosquitoes. Specific means for its prevention are not available; therefore, one of the main areas of WNF epidemiological surveillance is entomological monitoring that encompasses the control of the size ofvector populations arid the determination of infection rate of mos- quitoes with the virus in order to predict the epidemic situation. An analysis of normative documents on the collection and control of mosquito populations showed it necessary to improve entomological monitoring. Based on the literary and their own data, the authors propose to catch only Culix mosquitoes in the foci of WNF and to analyze their infection rates. The mosquitoes should be caught in mid-June to mid-September in the stationary points of urban and rural biotopes once every 7-10 days, by using automatic traps with CO₂ as an attractant. At least 500 specimens should be examined for virus RNA by PCR every 7-10 days to predict the epidemic situation.