There was an increase in Dengue cases in July in the South side of Belize City. The Public Health Department is responding with a series of Ultra Low Volume spraying sessions in the most affected areas in Belize City.
And while the ULV spray is not exactly air-freshener grade, don't close your windows!!
This afternoon, the public health officers discussed this and more at a public health education event:
Javier Alpuche , Senior Public Health Inspector
"We have a total of 6 vehicles, which will be deployed starting this evening to conduct ULV spray in the entire southside Belize City at first then we move on to Northside Belize City.
in terms of the schedule we conduct 3 consecutive sprays which will be this evening, tomorrow morning and tomorrow evening there by we do what we call a maintenance spray 7 days after."
Egner Lanin, District Supervisor, Central Health Region
"In regards of assisting is the Ministry of Health, a matter of fact when we conduct our ULV spray, always remember to keep your doors and windows open so that the chemical gets into your home because the type of mosquitos that we are dealing with is domestic mosquitos and this mosquitos of course live inside our homes. Many of times when we spray, we see people closing their windows, closing up their doors because they don't want to smell the chemicals and that is not effective.We are also conducting as Mr. Alpuche mention thermo-fogging. The thermo-fogging activity is being done in the southside of the city where we have a lot of cases. Now a lot of people don't understand what is the purpose of thermo-fogging. Basically it is the same equipment but in a smaller version."
Francis Westby, Dengue Technical Adviser, Ministry of Health
"We are spraying really to break the transmission cycle of the dengue virus. Added value that we get out of that is controlling mosquitos. That is not the primary goal of the vector control programme; Of course it is good when we can control the mosquitos but we can never no matter many machines we put, we can never do it on our own, therefore we encourage people. We ask people if you fry fish, if you fry chicken throw a little bit of the burnt oil in the stagnant water around your yard or in front of your yard."
The vehicles were a donation from THE Global Fund.Eeach vehicle costs $75,000 while each ULV machine costs $32,000.
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