The di­rec­tor of the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO), Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bosa, has called on Min­istries of Health in the re­gion to in­crease sur­veil­lance and lead the charge to­wards the elim­i­na­tion of mos­qui­to breed­ing grounds in a bid to re­duce mos­qui­to-trans­mit­ted virus­es such as Dengue, Zi­ka and Chikun­gun­ya.

“Cli­mate change has con­tributed to an in­crease in ar­eas favourable for the prop­a­ga­tion of the Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to, and con­se­quent­ly to the in­crease in ar­bovi­ral dis­eases in the Re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as,” said the PA­HO di­rec­tor in mark­ing Mos­qui­to Aware­ness Week.

“The ac­cel­er­at­ed growth of ur­ban ar­eas, the stor­age of wa­ter due to in­ad­e­quate piped wa­ter sup­ply, and the poor man­age­ment of sol­id waste are al­so fac­tors that in­crease breed­ing sites,” he added.

Ac­cord­ing to PA­HO, dengue is cur­rent­ly one of the main threats to pub­lic health in the Amer­i­c­as, in­clud­ing the Caribbean, with cas­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creas­ing in re­cent years.

In 2024, coun­tries of the re­gion re­port­ed over 13 mil­lion sus­pect­ed cas­es, a 283 per­cent in­crease in cas­es com­pared to 2023, and 356 per­cent high­er than the av­er­age num­ber of cas­es re­port­ed over the past five years.

PA­HO said cas­es of Chikun­gun­ya are al­so on the rise, with 431,223 cas­es re­port­ed dur­ing 2024, com­pared to 411,560 cas­es in 2023.

While there have not been any re­cent out­breaks of Zi­ka, PA­HO said the virus con­tin­ues to cir­cu­late, with 44,242 cas­es re­port­ed in 2024, com­pared to 37,659 cas­es in 2023.

These virus­es di­rect­ly af­fect peo­ples’ qual­i­ty of life, caus­ing high fever, in­tense pain, gen­er­al dis­com­fort, and in se­vere cas­es, po­ten­tial­ly fa­tal com­pli­ca­tions.

The dis­eases can be es­pe­cial­ly dan­ger­ous for chil­dren, the el­der­ly, preg­nant women and those with pre-ex­ist­ing con­di­tions.

But the im­pact of these dis­eases “is not lim­it­ed to just phys­i­cal symp­toms and deaths,” Bar­bosa said.

“It al­so af­fects the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and gen­er­al well-be­ing of peo­ple due to their ab­sence from work and school, and can gen­er­ate a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic bur­den for both fam­i­lies and pub­lic health sys­tems.”

Bar­bosa said it is, there­fore, cru­cial that Min­istries of Health “pro­mote and strength­en in­ter­sec­toral work in the fight against mos­qui­toes,” in­volv­ing both pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions and in­te­grat­ing ef­forts in ar­eas be­yond the health sec­tor, such as ed­u­ca­tion, san­i­ta­tion, ur­ban de­vel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“When we join forces in com­bat­ing mos­qui­toes in a time­ly and co­or­di­nat­ed man­ner, we can pre­vent out­breaks, save lives, and im­prove peo­ple’s liv­ing con­di­tions,” he said. —WASH­ING­TON (CMC)