Clint Chan Tuck
Health Minister Terence Deyalsingh said public health inspectors had tried to check residential areas for possible breeding sites for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the dengue virus, but had encountered hostility and uncooperative attitudes from some homeowners.
To this end, the ministry is working with the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Legal Affairs to create a legal platform to address situations where people are not protecting their homes from mosquito breeding sites.
He made this known at a press conference held at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital on July 25.
Deyalsingh said so far public health inspectors have sent notices to 166 homeowners who were found to have possible mosquito breeding sites in their homes.
At a press conference on July 10, Minister Deyalsingh said that owners of buildings that serve as mosquito breeding grounds will be fined up to $3,500.
Deyalsingh said that while most of those homeowners have since removed the sites as requested by inspectors and are grateful they were not fined, inspectors have encountered people who are hostile and uncooperative when allowed to inspect for potential mosquito breeding sites.
He reminded the media that inspectors were empowered by law.
“We don’t want to charge people, we just want people to be responsible. So, almost all of them (166 homeowners) have responded positively, which is good.”
“It’s not about charging people, but it’s a tool that we will use when necessary — to protect people, to protect the elderly, to protect the 10-20 age group that makes up 80 per cent of dengue cases, and to protect our neighbours.”
Deyalsingh said he had spoken with public health inspectors earlier in the day about inspecting homes that could be potential mosquito breeding sites.
“We are building a legal platform through the Ministry of Health and will be checking with the Attorney General to see what other legal steps we can take if we don’t get the (required) level of cooperation.”
There are now lab-confirmed cases of dengue fever at 509. The death toll from dengue fever remains at five.
Deyalsingh was reacting to allegations by some local government representatives that the Insect Vector Control Unit (IVCD) in the province was not functioning at peak efficiency.
“When it comes to local government issues, the IVCD is adequately equipped and manpowered to carry out the work of the IVCD. We try to support the local governments as much as we can. However, it is not possible for the IVCD to take over the work of the 14 local governments.”
Deyalsingh lamented that wrong stereotypes have been perpetrated against IVCDs for decades.
“IVCD has become synonymous with spray. We see IVCD as a big can of (insecticide) spray. That is not IVCD’s mission or its only mission.”
Dr Osafa Fraser, a specialist physician at the ministry, supported Deyalsingh’s view, saying there had been a lot of collaboration and cooperation between the ministry and local businesses in tackling dengue.
“There’s a lot of that going on. We’re in constant contact with the chief medical officers who run the IVCDs at these companies. We’re deepening those relationships and ways we work together.”
Mr Fraser said that in addition to spraying, the IVCD also carries out a lot of door-to-door pest control work.
“That’s a big part of what IVCD does. But we’re involved any time we have to respond to cases apart from dealing with the source. There are ways to deal with adult mosquitoes that are actually on the property.”
One method is ultra-low volume (ULV) spraying.
“We’re doing that because there’s a good chance that there will be at least two cases within a quarter-mile radius, so we’re doing this extensive work to capture as many of the adult mosquitoes that are present,” Fraser said.
“But we’re also doing targeted spraying, which we call thermal spraying, to address the adult insects. We do this around the perimeter of the home where we have a positive case. We do this in the home with the positive case and at least four homes on either side of it, so we can capture that specific pathway.”
Deyalsingh reiterated that 75 percent of a mosquito’s life cycle is spent in clean, clear, stagnant water.
This point was emphasised by Dr Deyalsingh and Dr Pedram Lara of IVCD as they showed test tubes of clean, clear water containing living water. Aedes aegypti There are mosquitoes.
They were compared to a mixture of dirty, stagnant and dead water. Aedes aegypti There were mosquito larvae in there. The water in these tubes came from the Caroni swamp and drains.
Lara said the larvae were put into all the tubes at the same time two days ago.
He said that mosquitoes that live in drains and swamps Ieca Mosquitoes do not transmit dengue fever.
Deyalsingh said this dispels the misinformation spread by some in the media that mosquitoes found in murky, stagnant water bodies spread dengue fever.
“While such circumstances do exist, evidence shows that dengue fever is primarily caused by clean, clear water stored in small to medium-sized household containers.
“Correlation does not equal causation. This is a mistake the media made during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’re making it again.”
“Correlation does not imply causation.”
That is, even if two events occur one after the other, it does not necessarily mean that one caused the other.
