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west nile mosquitoes found in york region no need for alarm says medical officer by lisa queen staff writer york region public health offi cials are rushing to calm fears after a colony of mosquitoes found in thornhill tested positive for the potentially fatal west nile virus the first confirmed case in the regions history although birds infected with the virus have been discovered within yorks borders over the last two years this marks the first time mosquitoes have been found carrying the disease the infected insects were found near the intersection of leslie street and steeles avenue not far from where a dead crow carrying the virus was found this month the virus can be spread to humans by mosquitoes that con tract the disease by feeding on infected birds but dr hanif kassam yorks associate medical officer of health stressed residents should not be alarmed by the discovery of the infected mosquitoes we are not alarmed with the identification of the positive mosquito pool and it is not unex pected he said dr kassam said there have been no cases of people contract ing the virus in canada adding five colonies of infected mosqui toes have already been discov ered in peel region see west nile page 5 main street makeover staff photosjoerd witteveen shiv trivedi 16 a grade 1 1 stouffville district secondary school student paints a lightpole while matthew holt 14 and samantha copithorn 17 dig up sidewalk weeds on main street stoufrville on thursday the students spent part of their summer holidays fulfilling their school volunteer requirements helping the business improvement area our days ofsmo for residents york region among places in ontario with worst air quality mikeadler staff writer before last weekend we were lucky region hadnt had two consecutive days of poor air quality this year but that luck ran out and since then resi dents had to breathe smog four days in a row until tuesday night the region was trapped in hot listless air each morning groundlevel ozone started building produc ing a smog in the heat that reached its chest- tightening worst before the afternoon rush home ian marnoch manager of trails a bicycle store in richmond hill recalled visiting milan italy and taipei taiwan cities where filter masks are everyday items for cyclists and pedestrians this week the markham man hoped he wasnt seeing his own future everyone around heres gonna be wearing masks too he predicted it doesnt matter how good your condi tion is you shouldnt be out sucking that stuff in at 3 pm monday ontarians could breathe air worse than ours only in north york etobicoke or oshawa said the provinces envi ronment ministry the same hour on tuesday york regions 15th smog advisory day this year saw poor er air quality only in north york etobicoke and the lake erie community of port stanley it was better to inhale in downtown see mr page 10