The Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion has em­barked on an emer­gency re­sponse plan to com­bat the spread of dengue fever in the five ad­min­is­tra­tive dis­tricts un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion, name­ly Erin, Ce­dros, La Brea, Siparia and Oropouche/Fyz­abad. Chair­man of the cor­po­ra­tion Leo Dood­nath said the plan would cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000 and would in­volve the clean­ing of drains and wa­ter­ways, cut­ting and re­moval of over­grown bush­es and the spray­ing of in­sec­ti­cide to stem and re­tard the breed­ing of the Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to which spreads dengue fever.

Dood­nath, a promi­nent busi­ness­man, said the cor­po­ra­tion viewed with con­cern the out­break of the fa­tal vi­ral dis­ease and would be mov­ing ag­gres­sive­ly to pre­vent loss of life in the 510-square kilo­me­tre area which falls un­der the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion. He said ini­tial­ly the mos­qui­to erad­i­ca­tion pro­gramme would run for 15 days with small con­trac­tors em­ploy­ing at least 80 work­ers, who, armed with bar­rows, shov­els, hay­forks, fan rakes and garbage bags, would comb the re­spec­tive dis­tricts in a mas­sive clean-up ef­fort. Dood­nath re­vealed that the cor­po­ra­tion's dengue erad­i­ca­tion ef­fort had al­so been boost­ed by the pur­chase of four ther­mal fog­gers cost­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $14,000 each along with in­sec­ti­cides priced at $60,000.

He stressed that all the re­sources of the cor­po­ra­tion were be­ing used to en­sure the suc­cess of the plan.

"We can­not over-em­pha­sise the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing our burgess­es from this dead­ly dis­ease," he said. "We think that it is ab­solute­ly es­sen­tial that the com­mu­ni­ties in the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion al­so dis­play some civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by co-op­er­at­ing with the work­ers in the dengue erad­i­ca­tion pro­gramme." Dood­nath said there was much that or­di­nary cit­i­zens could do the put a dent in the dengue prob­lem by keep­ing their sur­round­ings clean and mak­ing sure that their stor­age sup­plies of potable wa­ter is not a breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes.

"The dengue erad­i­ca­tion pro­gramme is the first step in a de­tailed and com­pre­hen­sive plan the cor­po­ra­tion has come up with through the as­sis­tance of our Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Balka­ran Shiv­nauth and our Pub­lic Health Of­fi­cers, and with valu­able in­put from our Coun­cil mem­bers," he said. He said high on the list of pri­or­i­ties was a re­duc­tion of the Aedes In­dex to un­der five in high in­dex ar­eas which would in­volve in­ten­si­fy­ing spray­ing ac­tiv­i­ties; plac­ing of gran­ules abate in all drink­ing wa­ter-hold­ing re­cep­ta­cles that are un­cov­ered; and dy­na-fog­ging where nec­es­sary. Dood­nath said the ed­u­ca­tion dri­ve would en­vis­age hold­ing com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings and sem­i­nars to prop­er­ly in­form the pub­lic on be­hav­iour that could lead to the dec­i­ma­tion of the mos­qui­to.