BOSTON (AP) – Continued high risk of eastern equine encephalitis has prompted a second round of aerial spraying for mosquitoes in southeastern Massachusetts, state officials said Monday. Gov. Mitt Romney declared a public health emergency in areas of the state where surveillance found an elevated risk of the disease and authorized actions to prevent it, including aerial spraying.

Romney also asked the Legislature to pass a bill that would spend $2 million on emergency mosquito spraying.

About 425,000 acres will be sprayed in an attempt to kill the disease-carrying insects and reduce the risk that more humans will contract it, said Brad Mitchell, director of regulatory services at the state Department of Agricultural Resources.

Mitchell said the spraying would begin Tuesday night, weather permitting, and last two or three nights.

Two cases of EEE – a 23-year-old man from Acushnet and a 52-year-old woman from Lakeville – have been reported his summer. Both people were in critical condition Monday, according to state public health officials.

Earlier this month, almost 160,000 acres in Plymouth and Bristol counties were sprayed with insecticide for the first time in 16 years. That reduced the mosquito population by at least 60 percent there, but those acres will be hit again in the upcoming spraying.

Meanwhile in Boston, city officials announced that the West Nile virus has been found in mosquitoes there for the first time this year. West Nile, like the EEE virus, is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites.