With the next test results from Connecticut's mosquito traps not due til Monday afternoon, all the campgrounds in the state, including the biggest at Hammonasset Beach State Park, will be open this weekend, except for the two campgrounds closed in Voluntown.
The forty campsites there have been off limits since Wednesday, when test results at the agricultural experiment station revealed two batches of human-biting mosquitoes trapped there had been infected with EEE, Eastern Equine Encephalitis.
Seventeen of 47 people who have had EEE died, said Theodore Andreadis, chief medical entomologist, and survivors suffer brain damage.
"We certainly don't want anybody coming down with this particular virus," Andreadis said.
Connecticut has had no human cases of EEE, even though Massachusetts struggles to contain the disease and Vermont has also seen human cases.
"Right now we're quite confident that this is highly focal," Andreadis said, explaining that the species of infected mosquito doesn't fly far. "So I don't think there's any serious concern in other areas of the state right now. It's always prudent though to avoid contact with mosquitoes."
