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Fogging exercises remain effective
8/1/2010
FOGGING is still effective in killing adult mosquitoes.
That is according to Ronald Chapman, Environmental Health Specialist with responsibility for Vector Control in the Ministry of Health, who said that a test has shown that the mixture of malathion and diesel is still reaping success. His comments came during a press conference recently to give an update on dengue fever in the country.
“What we have been doing over the years is the consistent use of the malathion. We wanted to find out if the fog is still working, so we conducted a resistance test, where we exposed the mosquitoes to the same level and concentration of fog that they would have received in the district when we do the fogging. We conducted that trial late last year under a controlled environment and what we found was that the fog still works...Once the mosquito has been exposed to the required amount of fog, [it] will still die,” he said.
Chapman went on to say that they are taking the research a step further and will soon be determining if the method of applying the fog is also still effective.
“The persons who are doing the fogging will not know where the mosquitoes are or when the trial will take place, so they will not have an opportunity to modify their fogging actions. What we do then is place the mosquitoes in a number of different places – in people’s homes, in their backyards, in anywhere where you would normally find mosquitoes breeding – and allow the guys to go through in their normal course of fogging [and] we take the mosquitoes back and check to see if they will die, that will let us know if the actual application method is working,” he explained.
The Environmental Health Specialist is also urging Barbadians to conduct weekly inspections around their homes to check for mosquitoes. He maintained that such checks would go a long way in helping in the fight against dengue.
“We have found that probably about 97, 98 per cent of the times people complain for mosquitoes. When the inspectors do the investigations, we find the mosquitoes actually breeding at the home of the complainant. Some of the times, we actually find them at their neighbours and so on, where obviously they are not at liberty to go over on the neighbours’ premises,” he noted.
He suggested that persons should turn unused containers over, or place holes in them to prevent water collecting and in the case of plant trays, persons can put a very small amount of salt in the tray which would prevent mosquitoes from breeding. However, he cautioned them not to use too much salt as it was not good for the plants. (JRT)
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