Jensen La Vende

Three work­ers at the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion head­quar­ters, Cunu­pia, fell ill yes­ter­day af­ter breath­ing in fumes from a chem­i­cal stor­age area.Staff com­plained that they had been clam­our­ing for the ware­house to be re­moved, as it posed a risk to their health. It is used to store poi­so­nous chem­i­cals such as Malathion and temephos, which are used to kill mos­qui­toes.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said he was aware of yes­ter­day's in­ci­dent and warned that un­less the chem­i­cals were re­moved he would not be al­low­ing his mem­bers back on the com­pound. But in re­sponse, Health Min­is­ter Fuad Khan said he be­lieved acts of sab­o­tage might be re­spon­si­ble for the three em­ploy­ees falling ill.In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day Khan said the in­ci­dent, which hap­pened around 8.30 am, was the sec­ond "un­usu­al" in­ci­dent in two weeks.

He said an of­fice build­ing there was flood­ed two weeks ago "with­out cause" and the mat­ter was now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion."I will catch who­ev­er is re­spon­si­ble," Khan said.Em­ploy­ees who spoke to the T&T Guardian on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said the three work­ers be­gan feel­ing ill short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing at work, but af­ter com­plain­ing to their su­pe­ri­ors they were told they were fak­ing and they should "go and do the gov­ern­ment work."

The work­ers added that af­ter one woman be­gan vom­it­ing and an­oth­er faint­ed, their su­pe­ri­ors con­tact edthe Emer­gency Health Ser­vices (EHS) ,who took them to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty.