Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Mos­qui­to erad­i­ca­tion has been ramped up in low-ly­ing ar­eas of south Trinidad af­ter the Min­istry of Health con­firmed two more cas­es of the Zi­ka virus.

The vic­tims, who live in Oropouche and Barataria, are be­ing treat­ed at pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tions. So far 11 peo­ple have been di­ag­nosed with the virus, which caus­es mi­cro­cephaly in ba­bies and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, chair­man of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Leo Dood­nath, said a pub­lic health meet­ing was held yes­ter­day, short­ly be­fore the min­istry is­sued a state­ment con­firm­ing the new Zi­ka cas­es.

Dood­nath said an on­go­ing dy­nafog­ging ex­er­cise was on-stream to kill the adult Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­toes, which trans­mit the virus.

"We al­so have mos­qui­to aware­ness month which we launched in March. We will con­tin­ue our pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion dri­ve so that peo­ple will be con­scious about up­keep­ing their sur­round­ings," Dood­nath said.

Say­ing the fight against Zi­ka should be every­one's pri­or­i­ty, Dood­nath said pub­lic aware­ness was key to pre­vent­ing the spread of the virus.

"We have to take steps to re­duce the breed­ing grounds of the mos­qui­to," he said.

Al­der­man Shankar Teelucks­ingh said ar­eas in Ica­cos and Ce­dros which are be­low sea lev­el, are be­ing tar­get­ed.

"We are clean­ing a lot of drains and wa­ter­cours­es. We are do­ing house vis­its and the cor­po­ra­tion is well-equipped to fight Zi­ka as we re­cent­ly pur­chased four de-fog­gers and a Ul­tra-low Vol­ume (ULV) ma­chine," Teelucks­ingh said. He added that fly­ers were be­ing dis­trib­uted to build pub­lic aware­ness about the mos­qui­toes.

The chair­man of the Pe­nal/ Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Prem­c­hand Sookoo, al­so said his cor­po­ra­tion in­tend­ed to dy­nafogg every cor­ner of the nine elec­toral dis­tricts start­ing on Mon­day. He said the Gov­ern­ment had al­lo­cat­ed $500,000 to com­bat Zi­ka.

"We in­tend to work with the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health and the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol di­vi­sion to spray the ar­eas. We are al­so call­ing on peo­ple to clean up their prop­er­ties and throw away the old tyres and pots and pans which are breed­ing mos­qui­toes," Sookoo added.

Min­istry re­sponds

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the min­istry said af­ter con­sult­ing with the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA), the two cas­es were con­firmed. There are at this time no con­firmed cas­es in To­ba­go.

Both pa­tients ex­pe­ri­enced an out­break of rash, fever and gen­er­alised body pains.

"The In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion; Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cers of Health for St Patrick and St George West; the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion were in­formed and field work has com­menced," the min­istry said.

Cit­i­zens are be­ing urged to take the fol­low­ing steps to pre­vent the in­fec­tion:

Dis­pose of all un­want­ed con­tain­ers/items in the yard or en­vi­rons which can col­lect wa­ter and be­come mos­qui­to breed­ing grounds.

Cov­er wa­ter con­tain­ers such as bar­rels, drums or buck­ets with a mos­qui­to-proof cov­er­ing.

En­sure that drains and gut­ter­ing al­low the free flow of wa­ter.

Emp­ty and scrub the sides of wa­ter vas­es or use dirt or sand in­stead to sup­port flow­ers.

Cov­er ex­trem­i­ties when out in the evenings.

Use bed nets that are tight­ly tucked un­der the mat­tress for pro­tec­tion at night.

Use in­sect re­pel­lent that con­tains DEET as an ac­tive in­gre­di­ent.