Public response to mosquito eradication good, but more effort needed: CMO

The public response to the Ministry of Health's mosquito eradication campaign has been good and the awareness of citizens about the fever is encouraging.

That's the view of Chief Medical Officer, Dr Anton Cumberbatch. However he said it is no easy task killing off the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which carries the deadly disease. He told the Express newspaper that will take a sustained and aggressive campaign for the next 10 years.

"I think the question of dengue is very much on everybody's mind. You're seeing it every day in the press and people are talking about the water, they are complaining about places not being sprayed and they are taking their children to be tested," Cumberbatch told the paper.

"We have been saying over and over, especially in the past four or five years with a louder and louder voice, that environmental cleanup and management of your homes is an everyday business.

"That is the attitude we want the population to adopt. That even in the dry season you need to clean up the drains and ensure that the containers which collect water are not there because the mosquito eggs are there."

Cumberbatch said a combination of education, behaviour modification and penalties for "inappropriate behaviour" would be the most effective way to deal with the problem. However he noted that legislation is impractical in many instances.

"You want to avoid having to legislate somebody to clean their house. How do you do that? The dengue mosquito breeds inside your home. It is around your yard if you have containers but also if you have water collecting inside of your house.

"You really want to take the society to a different level of responsibility for the environmental sanitation of our own country backed by education. We are getting there but it is taking a bit slow."

Her said the authorities have been spraying to kill mosquitos for 60 years and the insects are stilla round. "What is needed is an all-out prevention drive by the community playing its role, the State playing its role, Local Government playing its role and education in the schools," he told the paper.

"We have to become a clean society. You know when people go to Canada they always talk about how the place is so clean. That didn't happen by accident you know. It doesn't happen by accident."