BATON ROUGE — The East Baton Rouge Parish Mosquito Abatement Rodent Control will be conducting an aerial spray mission over the Southdowns area Wednesday evening following an increased mosquito population and an influx in West Nile virus cases.

The agency will be conducting the spray over a portion of the south-central area of the parish starting at 8:10 p.m., assistant director Randy Vaeth said.

At LSU, researchers are developing a more effective insect repellent in response to the increase in West Nile cases spread by mosquitos.