Hyderabad: Precaution only cure for dengue and malaria
The GHMC entomology wing had identified 3000 to 3500 houses positive for mosquitoes breeding.
Hyderabad: GHMC’s figures of 117 dengue and 96 malaria cases are numbers collected from city government hospitals, but if the number of cases from private hospitals are taken into account, Hyderabad would have reported hundreds of dengue and malaria cases in the last one month.
The prime reasons that anti-larvae and fogging operations do not work for dengue mosquitoes is because they breed in fresh water in houses, and there’s no scope to curtail dengue mosquitoes other than citizens taking precautions. For mosquitoes causing malaria, fogging only makes them unconscious but does not kill them, and anti larva operations do not curtail all sources.
The GHMC entomology wing had identified 3000 to 3500 houses positive for mosquitoes breeding. The main source of breeding for both dengue and malaria mosquitoes are overhead tanks, sumps, pit-taps, water storage containers like drums, tins, pots and unwanted waste materials.
“GHMC claiming that they have 134 portable hand machines is a lie as nothing works on the ground. If GHMC does not have staff or funds they should seek the help of Mission Kakatiya to eradicate breeding source in tanks. The mosquitoes are as big as 10 mm. In majority of the tank there is sewerage inflow which is a rich source of breeding. Fogging does not help kill mosquitoes, funds spent on these technique is of no use. Instead the entomology team should reform their techniques,” said an MIM corporator.
Additional commissioner, health and sanitation, N. Ravi Kiran said, “Indoor pyrethrum space spray, larval survey and fogging activities are being taken up for all the reported cases of dengue and malaria for arresting further transmission. The department has also released 35,000 gambusia fish in water bodies to prevent mosquito breeding.”
He said disease hot spots and transmission dynamics were identified for both dengue and malaria based on previous year’s incidence and GIS mapping has been done for all the reported cases. Day-to-day fogging is done for control of adult mosquitoes.