A mild winter and hotter-than-usual summer might be good news for those who like the warm weather, but it could also be bad news for public health.

Researchers at Memorial University have released their findings of a years-long study which had people in the province and St. Pierre-Miquelon collecting insects and submitting them for identification.

They discovered that some of the samples carried diseases that could be transmitted to humans, specifically the snowshoe hare virus, the Jamestown Canyon virus and a new one suspected of being similar to the Jamestown.

Dr. Atanu Sarkar, a public health specialist in the Faculty of Medicine, says many mosquito-borne diseases have similar symptoms: fever, fatigue, headache, nausea, vomiting and rash.

He says they are now investigating the public health implications of having mosquito-borne illness in the province.