Floods aren’t the only danger in this, our dampest of summers. Warm pools of water are havens for insect life, and that means mozzies.

NHS Direct report a 28% rise in enquiries about mosquito bites in early August, compared with the same time last year.

Meanwhile, residents of Beckton are itching the night away thanks to a concentration of mozzies at a local sewage treatment works. Thames Water have sprayed the breeding pools with chemicals and, inventively, plan to asphyxiate surviving insects under a layer of polystyrene balls. At the other end of town, Hounslow council have sent out leaflets warning residents about potential swarms at their own sewage works.

Mosquitoes and other UK insects may be irritating, but they rarely carry disease. That’s small comfort to Peter Kemp of Teddington, who was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease after suffering tick bites in Richmond Park 15 years ago. He’s calling for warning signs in parks to increase awareness of the disease, which infects 600 people in the UK each year.

Itching yet?

Image of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine taken from noj.johnson’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Flickr photostream.