On weekdays, the call will be made to the landline of the emergency office, and on days off, the call will be transferred to Li Bai's mobile phone.

The phone was connected, and Gao Xiaoming got straight to the point, "Director Li, the emergency department of our hospital has received more than a dozen cases of ant bites, and the situation is more serious than the symptoms. ”

"Where did the red fire ants come from?" asked Li Bai in surprise.

"Oasis Park, the patient said that he personally caught it from there, and it seems that there are quite a few of them. ”

Li Bai has been doing disease prevention and control work for many years and knows all kinds of situations in Yunhai City.

There are no red fire ants in Yunhai City, at least until today, before hearing the news, there have been no reports of red fire ants in Yunhai City.

Red fire ants are native to the Paraná River basin in South America and invaded the southern United States in the early 20th century.

The earliest record of red fire ants in mainland China was in 2004, when signs of red fire ant invasion were found in a sub-district office in Guangdong.

Since then, red fire ant damage has been found in various provinces.

Red fire ants can destroy public facilities such as power supply, telecommunications, farmland, and dams, and can become dominant species in new ecological environments in a short period of time, so they are classified as one of the most destructive invasive species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Forestry Administration have successively designated red fire ants as imported plant quarantine pests, national plant quarantine pests, and national forestry quarantine pests.

Will such a dangerous invasive species appear in Yunhai City?

How did it invade, what is the current trend of spreading, what are the injured people? These are all questions that need to be clarified urgently.

"Collect the ants that the patient catches, and be careful not to let any of them go, because if it is a red fire ant, they will be very aggressive. Li Bai began to communicate with Gao Xiaoming, director of the emergency department.

"Don't you CDC come to the scene?" Gao Xiaoming asked, according to past experience, every time an epidemic occurs, CDC will come to the hospital as soon as possible, ask basic questions clearly, and then go to the scene for investigation.

"Go, I'll go to your emergency department alone. ”

——

Hospital emergency department.

When Li Bai rushed to the emergency department, he found that more and more patients were bitten, and more than 30 people came to see him in just 20 minutes.

The spot where everyone was bitten was in Oasis Park.

Several patients brought ants that bitten them.

Li Bai took out the magnifying glass in the sampling box and checked all the ants one by one.

These ants are reddish-brown in color, with well-developed prefrontal lobes, pronounced compound eyes, two tubercles in the abdomen, and inconspicuous intersegmental seams in the anterior and midthoracic areas, and prominent intersegmental seams in the mid-thoracic and posterior thoracic areas.

The tibial pitch of the forefoot is comb-like, and the anterior tarsal claw is simple and toothless.

This is typical of the leafcutter subfamily Leafcutter.

On closer inspection, it was found that the antennae had 10 segments, two segments at the end were enlarged, and the base of the lip had two steel hairs.

This is characteristic of the genus Fire Ants.

And these ants have a small tooth process in the middle of the base of the lip and a lateral tooth on each side.

This is a characteristic of the species.

From this, it can be determined that these are indeed red fire ants.

Red fire ants are divided into many geographical populations, and the specific geographical populations of these are also analyzed by genetic sequencing.

However, this is not important now, as long as it is a red fire ant, it is an invasive species for Yunhai City, and it is necessary to quickly find out the location and scope of the invasion and extinguish it in time, otherwise this invasive species is extremely fecund, and if it is not controlled in time, the loss will be unpredictable.

"It's red fire ants, I need to go to the scene to investigate. ”

——

Oasis Park.

The lawn where many people used to fly kites is empty.

The red mounds on the lawn are one after another, several of which have been damaged by human trampling, and a large number of red fire ants are crawling in the grass, some of which have crawled out of the lawn and attacked the surrounding groves.

Park staff were maintaining order and forbidding crowds from approaching the lawn, but there were still people who couldn't help but be curious and come to watch.

Li Bai grabbed a park worker, showed his work card, and asked, "When did this kind of red mound start to appear in Oasis Park?"

The man saw that Li Bai's work card was a disease control officer, and he was very cooperative, "It appeared at the beginning of spring, there were very few at the beginning, and in recent days, there have been more mounds, and no tourists have been bitten before, and we didn't care, who would have thought that today these ants are attacking people everywhere like crazy." ”

"Is there anything else in the park besides this lawn?" asked Li Bai.

"Yes, there is also that grove and the flower bed over there, but there are the most lawns here, and there are few other places. ”

It seems that the red fire ants are not only infested by this lawn, but the entire Oasis Park is dangerous.

At this time, someone in the crowd of onlookers noticed Li Bai, saw his work card, and immediately stepped forward to reflect, "Comrade of disease control, we also have this kind of mound in our community, and there are red ants around the mound, which have only appeared in the last few days, but they have not bitten." ”

The presence of red fire ants in residential areas is a serious problem.

"Which neighborhood are you?"

"Youth Community, next to the Oasis Park, next to each other, do you think it will be the red ants in the Green State Park who run to our community to dig their nests, will they also attack people?"

From time to time, there were screams from the crowd of onlookers, who were attacked and bitten by red fire ants.

Li Bai frowned slightly, it is not possible to go on like this, and the ant extermination operation must be launched as soon as possible.

If this happens in residential areas, there will be more people who will be attacked.

Li Bai: "Can you leave me a contact information?" CDC will go to the youth community to investigate the invasion of red fire ants in a while, and there are some situations that require your cooperation. ”

"No problem, let's add a WeChat, I'll scan you, my WeChat account is my mobile phone number, so it's easy to contact in the future." "This man is very zealous.

Disease control people have a good image in the eyes of the public, and everyone will actively cooperate if there is any problem.

To eradicate red fire ants, it is necessary to first investigate the scope of the red fire ant invasion and prepare drugs and tools to kill the ants.

On the way back to the CDC, Li Bai called several members of the emergency team and notified the center to assemble and prepare for the next step of the ant extermination operation.

——

Yunhai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Emergency Material Reserve Warehouse.

Between the office building and the experimental complex there is a small two-storey building, which is a warehouse for emergency supplies.

In a small warehouse on the second floor, there were some instruments and equipment that were not commonly used, and Li Bai opened the door to find out what was needed for this ant extermination operation.

Trap bottle, GPS, camera, bamboo stick......

I went to the drug warehouse next door and found some anticidal drugs, indoxacarb, fipronil, sulfluramid and other baits.

After checking it, Li Bai felt as if something was missing, put all the materials on the on-site flow shunting car, and he went to the small supermarket next to the central canteen.

took out two packs of sausages from the supermarket shelves, and was about to check out, when he met Lin Xiaoxiao holding a bottle of mineral water and coming to the counter.

"Director Li, do you like to eat sausages? I happen to have my parents at home who made their own sausages for the Chinese New Year, and I will send you a few in the evening. ”

"Thank you, but no, I don't eat these sausages myself, this is experimental material. ”