Mosquitoes discovered as far north as Shetland in Scotland-wide study
As the Scottish summer draws closer many will be dreading the return of midges, however, research has found mosquitoes are reaching as far north as Shetland.
It comes after members of the public were urged to share images of mosquitoes and bites in May 2024 as part of a project by scientists at the University of Glasgow.
Sightings of mosquitoes were sent to the Mosquito Scotland team every month in the last year, with reports peaking in the spring and summer, but also continuing in cooler months right up to December.
Mosquito Scotland is a collaborative project between the University of Glasgow, the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). Martin Shields University of Glasgow researchers launching a citizen science tool to research mosquitos in Scotland. From L to R Dr Georgia Kirby and PhD student Meshach Lee with the mosquito trap.
The team received over 700 reports of mosquitoes from across Scotland, including from Dumfries and Galloway to the Shetland Isles.
The sighting in Shetland became the northernmost recording of the insect in the UK.
While most of the 21 different mosquito species present in Scotland don't bite people, the study found that several species can be source of nuisance biting, indicating that human exposure to the insects is higher across the country than is commonly thought.
Mosquitoes are a natural part of Scottish ecosystems, and the study is aiming to understand their biodiversity and role in it.
It comes after researchers at the University of Glasgow said last year that mosquitoes found in Scotland could pose a future risk of spreading disease.
Mosquitoes are known to carry diseases, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that about 219 million people contract malaria from the insects each year globally, resulting in 400,000 deaths.
Although mosquitoes do not currently pose any infectious disease risk to humans in Scotland, their bites can cause itching, discomfort and local swelling.
The research team want to raise awareness that people can be exposed to mosquito bites in Scotland, and provide guidance on simple precautions to prevent this.
Dr Georgia Kirby, the researcher running the citizen science survey, said there were several areas of Scotland where there were lots of reports of bites but very few photos of the culprits.
'We had suspected that midges or clegs could be responsible, but in our follow-up investigations we invariably found that these locations were swarming with mosquitoes – proving that people in Scotland are good at recognising them and distinguishing them from more familiar insects,' she said.
'Most of these sites were areas of dense woodland, which is a key habitat for several aggressive human-biting mosquito species.'
Professor Dominic Mellor, consultant in Veterinary Public Health at Public Health Scotland, said the project is playing a 'vital role' in understanding the species.
'In particular, the citizen science aspects are providing detailed information, previously lacking, about the presence and diversity of mosquito species that are being found across Scotland,' he added.
'Such information is invaluable in helping us understand and prepare appropriately for potential risks to public health that might arise as a result of climate change.'
Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Scotsman
The mental health revolution that is happening in England, but not here in Scotland
Mark Smith, co-founder of mental health charity The Joshi Project, writes about what he wants to see done in Scotland. Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A revolution in mental health services is unfolding across parts of the UK. Sadly, this revolution has not extended to Scotland. NHS England last year took two radical steps. Firstly, it recognised that its existing system of mental health care was broken. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mental health hubs are being strengthened in NHS England. | Adobe Secondly, it allocated £30 million for six pilot projects based on the Trieste model, the globally renowned system of community mental health care. This seismic shift cannot be overstated and the question posed here is simple - why has Scotland not done the same? The mental health crisis we face is every bit as severe as it is in England. We live with unacceptably high rates of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence, incarceration and homelessness – all of which, to varying degrees, trace their roots to inadequate mental health care. Meanwhile, prescriptions in Scotland for antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs have skyrocketed over the past decade. The latest figures from Public Health Scotland reveal around 8.3 million antidepressants alone were prescribed to more than a million Scots. That means more than 20 per cent of the population take these drugs. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Even the typically cautious Royal College of Psychiatrists (Scotland), in its manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliament Elections, described the current situation as a "mental health emergency'. Psychiatrists around the world have long regarded community-based approaches, which respects the rights of individuals and use networks of social support as treatment options. as the answer to the failings of traditional psychiatric systems. What is the Trieste model? The Trieste model is named after the Italian city, where it began in the 1970s. It is a system of 24/7 holistic, open-access mental health hubs, based on community psychiatry, human rights, hospitality and the continuity of trusted support relationships. The World Health Organisation has called it the world's most successful model for recovery from mental illness. In the spirit of transparency, I need to declare my own stake in the Trieste model. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As the co-founder of The Joshi Project, a Scottish mental health charity that my wife and I established the year after our daughter's death in 2020, we have been pushing the NHS to set up Trieste-style mental health hubs in Scotland for the past four years – so far, without success. In that time, I have spoken to hundreds of Scots touched by our mental health crisis. Anyone who thinks that services are functioning adequately isn't paying attention. Ask any parent who has lost a child to mental illness, or a sibling, friend or loved one who has tried to navigate the ineffectiveness and the awful outcomes of mental health care in Scotland. Or ask the doctors, psychiatric nurses and support workers, who tell me how stymied they are within the fragmented and ineffective care system in which they work. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Families also tell me of their desperate efforts to find a place to go during a mental health emergency - I was one of those with my daughter - or the frustrating search for effective care for a loved one suffering from a complex condition that an antidepressant or a few CBT sessions won't fix. The resistance against change The Scottish NHS boards I have met have persistently resisted change. We are now in the process of raising enough funds to set up a Trieste-style hub ourselves. It is our hope that the NHS will join us, but we're not holding our breath. Yet, the Trieste model has already been adopted successfully at city, regional and national health levels in more than 30 countries – Brazil, Poland, India and the Czech Republic among them. In Trieste, the model has dramatically reduced rates of homelessness, alcohol and drug addiction, enforced hospitalisations and, over a period of 15 years, cut suicide rates by a jaw-dropping 50 per cent. In Scotland, suicide rates have barely budged over 15 years. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I have no doubt that my daughter's life – and by extension, the lives of thousands of Scots – could have been saved if access to Trieste-style care and treatment had been available. Based on recovery rates alone, the most extraordinary fact about the Trieste model is that it works. Traditional models for psychiatric care, like the one practiced in Scotland, generally assumes that all mental health problems are the result of brain defects and are best treated by hospitalisation and medications. The Trieste model instead focuses not on our brains, but on our lives, our relationships and our interaction with the world around us. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I believe we must learn from the failures of our existing system – just as NHS England has done. Scotland needs to build an open process of recovery like the Trieste model – one that's awake to a wider picture of mental illness and all its interactions and social determinants. We need a system that points us toward our universal human struggles with self-control and psychic pain – thus making mental illness profoundly ordinary and contiguous with all human suffering. The Trieste model also understands that mental illness, addiction and often homelessness, incarceration and other social scourges have the same roots. Shouldn't this grab the attention – and the small amount of funding it would take – of the Scottish Government and every NHS board? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mark Smith | Contributed I'm still at a loss to understand why it hasn't done so – even as the Scottish Mental Health Law Review and Audit Scotland's report on mental health have recommended the Trieste model's implementation. The pilots south of the Border South of the Border, all six Trieste-model pilots – Sheffield, Birmingham, York, Cumbria and two in London – are expected to be up and running within the next three months. Two are already operating. More are likely to follow. It's also worth noting that if the pilots are successful, the model is intended to become the standard of mental health care. The problem in Scotland cannot be cost – the most common objection I've heard from NHS management – because Trieste models are significantly cheaper to operate. The real problem is complacency and lack of vision. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Dr SP Sashidharan, a Glasgow-based psychiatrist consulting with the Birmingham project, told me that a recent internal study concluded that if the Trieste project were rolled out across Birmingham, it would save the NHS £50 million a year. When asked about Scotland's resistance to change, he said: 'The Scottish Government and NHS Scotland appear to be oblivious to the urgent need for a fundamental reform of our mental health services, as demanded by service users, their families and carers, as well as voluntary groups. But based on my involvement in the Birmingham pilot, similar initiatives would certainly work in Scotland.' It's worth remembering that poor mental health isn't just deadly, as it was for my daughter. It's also disabling. It robs people of quality of life, which may be more important than mortality. Too many people are warehoused in psychiatric hospitals or in prisons, or even in their own homes, where they spend their days medicated and incapacitated as prisoners of their own reduced lives. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad At the political, economic and social level, it robs our communities and our country of the precious contributions of thousands of people who have so much more to give. Our communities deserve better, as does our nation. Now that England has joined the mental health enlightenment, it's time Scotland did the same.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Grieving families deserve better legal support say parents of baby who died at Scots hospital
'It's not fair you can be accused of who knows what and immediately get a solicitor but for an FAI there is nothing. Sitting through it without anybody in your corner is so unfair.' The parents of a baby who died at Scotland's largest hospital have called for better support during fatal accident inquiries. Freya Murphy was just seven days old when she died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital after being starved of oxygen during labour, causing severe brain and organ damage. A sheriff ruled maternity services staff levels should be reviewed in light of Freya's death. Parents Martin and Karen waited seven years from her 2018 death to the conclusion of a fatal accident inquiry (FAI). They called for families to get legal support, saying it is unfair to place a financial burden on people who want to know what happened to loved ones. Martin said: 'It wasn't easy but we did manage to retain lawyers so we could be represented during Freya's FAI. 'We felt we had to have our own legal representation to ensure questions we had were answered. If we hadn't paid for a lawyer we would not have been represented and that is what many families face.' Families whose relatives' deaths are the subject of FAIs can apply for legal aid but with funding stretched, the chance of receiving it is extremely low. In March the government lifted means testing for people whose relatives die in custody, entitling them to free and immediate legal support for an FAI. It is not the same for those whose loved ones die at work or in hospital. Freya's mum Karen said: 'How many families don't have the means and are just sitting there while other people discuss what's happened to their child or relative? Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. 'It's not fair you can be accused of who knows what and immediately get a solicitor but for an FAI there is nothing. Sitting through it without anybody in your corner is so unfair.' Their calls are backed by Scottish Labour's justice spokeswoman Pauline McNeill MSP, who said: 'This heartbreaking case shows too many families are failed during the most difficult time. The state of Scottish legal aid is a scandal. The SNP must get a grip of the crisis so no bereaved family is priced out of justice.' Justice Secretary Angela Constance said: 'Publicly funded legal assistance is available to all who meet eligibility criteria on matters of Scots law, which includes civil legal aid for all fatal accident inquiries.'
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Demands for cops to investigate deaths of hundreds of babies across Scotland
Campaigners are concerned about the number of newborns dying in maternity units and have called for urgent action. Police are facing demands to investigate the deaths of hundreds of babies across Scotland. The Sunday Mail has learned campaigners reported concerns about the number of newborns dying in maternity units and have called for urgent action. But Police Scotland insists it has 'noted' the concerns, but has so far refused to open a formal investigation. It comes as forces in England are currently probing the deaths of hundreds of babies at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust after a review found catastrophic failings. Scottish campaign group ASAP-NHS, led by former Crown prosecutor for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Roger Livermore, contacted Police Scotland in February over their concerns about baby death rates in Scotland. Recent figures show about 500 babies have died since 2019, with health boards paying compensation in 131 cases of baby death or injury. The total compensation bill in the last five years is more than £74million with about a third of that being paid out by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Livermore said: 'We have been very concerned about the large number of babies dying unnecessarily and unlawfully all over Scotland. We have reported them to the police and Lord Advocate but no effective action has been taken. 'There are major problems in maternity services across all parts of the UK. Current scandals in England are being investigated by the police. Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain has held a very small number of fatal accident inquiries on the situation at individual health boards. This is not sufficient. 'Overarching law requires that deaths must be handled and investigated by a person and body independent of government – not a member of it. In the rest of the UK this is the HM Coroner system.' Livermore said he was concerned that Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the NHS watchdog in Scotland, had never carried out maternity unit inspections before this year. He said that reviews into serious incidents which have resulted in death or harm to patients, known as serious adverse event reviews, are also not being routinely published. He said: 'Frontline staff such as midwives are aware of the problems and have already raised concerns about the situation across the country. The internal reports, when they are forced out of NHS boards under Freedom of Information, show that the same problems are endlessly repeated. Lessons are not learnt. The public are totally kept in the dark.' As previously reported by the Sunday Mail, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was rapped by health watchdogs after it emerged hundreds of serious adverse event reviews had not been carried out, years after the incidents had happened. The health board recorded more than 1000 'Category 1 significant adverse events' that may have contributed to or resulted in permanent harm or death of patients in the last five years. Police Scotland said that it had received the report but was not planning on taking any action. The force said: 'There is no police investigation into baby deaths at Scottish maternity units.' Between January and October last year, 262 incidents were recorded with just 14 reviews completed at all, and just one within the 90-day timescale. In 2017, NHS Ayrshire and Arran was criticised over the 'unnecessary' deaths of six babies at Crosshouse hospital, with staff shortages affecting patient care. In 2018, Freya Murphy died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital after medics failed to notice she was being starved of oxygen during delivery. An FAI found staffing levels were an issue.
