THE INCREASED USE of water storage tanks at residences across the island has become a major impediment to the effort to control the breeding of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
This revelation came from Acting Deputy Chief Environmental Health Officer Austin Greaves, who was speaking last Wednesday at the Vector Control Unit’s Open Day at Jubilee Gardens in Bridgetown.
“The increased use of water storage tanks has been creating a headache for the country with the breeding of mosquitoes. People do not seem to be able to handle the care and as a result there is a heavy increase of mosquitoes in underground cisterns,” said Greaves.
Also speaking during the Open Day was Patrick Todd, Minister of State in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Empowerment, Innovation, Trade, Industry and Commerce, and also Member of Parliament for The City of Bridgetown.
He reiterated the important role the Vector Control Unit is playing in controlling the roliferation of vectors, including mosquitoes and rodents.
Todd said: “Within The City there are hundreds of vendors and it is their responsibility to keep their surroundings clean. Fruit vendors have to ensure if their fruit spoil they discard them properly to prevent rodents from getting to it.”
The minister further noted that the nation’s capital had a high concentration of people passing through it daily and this presented the opportunity for that area to become a high breeding area.
“Practise good sanitary behaviour. When you litter the streets indiscriminately you are rendering the bait stations useless because the rodents will not go to the bait stations if they have food on the streets for them to get to,” Todd said.
He appealed to people to desist from stealing the bait stations or vandalising them. He said that individuals were using the bait stations to prop up vehicles and also playing dominoes on them and this practice was hampering progress.
Todd also called on the public to give environmental health officers their full cooperation. “Some business places have not accepted training being offered by the [Vector Control Unit], and this practice should be frowned upon,” he said. (LK)