The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

ANSWERING the call of frustrated residents in eastern and western New Providence, the Department of Environmental Health is slated to begin fogging for pest mosquitoes tomorrow.

Andrew Thompson, DEHS assistant director, said the decision was triggered by the volume of complaints from residents in those areas, which he described as prolific breeding areas due to the natural land formation.

“We plan to start on Wednesday. There are a couple of things we use to indicate if we should do fogging or not,” he said.

“First, the number of complaints, there was some rain in recent weeks, and so we have been getting a number of complaints and that was one thing that triggered it. In addition to that we have to approach from other angles as well, we go out into areas and look where breeding is actually occurring and if we have access to it we will also do some aquatic stage vector control, where there is living organism in the water and we do treatment there as well, we started that already.”

Mr Thompson continued: “In New Providence, it’s really the east, as well as the west, and that’s in sync with geographical features like ponding, bodies of water as a result of natural land formation, marsh land, these areas are prolific breeding sites for pest mosquitos.”

Mr Thompson made the distinction between pest mosquitoes and those that carry vector diseases like the aedes aegypti mosquito. To prevent against the spread of illness like dengue fever and chikungunya, Mr Thompson advised residents to be vigilant in managing the collection of water around their homes and yards.

“It’s also important for individuals and communities to continue to check yards to see if there are any water holding containers,” he added, “because those are the problem with disease vectors that can spread dengue, etc. Pay attention to their yards. Do inspection every week. Manage your containers you have in your premises, that is the significant control measure of source reduction for disease vectors.”