This week in the Belize District, there's been an explosion in the mosquito population - swarms of mosquitoes are everywhere: outdoors, indoors, even in cars!
So is it the fault of the Public Health Department for not spraying enough or at the right time? We asked Public Health Inspector Steven Rivers if the Spraying regimen failed or if the mosquito bloom just could not be avoided:….
Steven Rivers, Public Health Inspector
"Earlier we have been spraying countrywide. We had 8 trucks that are moving from district to district spraying. Of late we have had a good amount of mosquito havocking on us. The spraying continues every week - every 7 days we do spraying. We work with the mosquito cycle where every 7 days a mosquito hatch an egg and then the larvae and so we do a maintenance spray every 7 days. But because of the amount of mosquitoes right now that we are feeling we in Belize are planning to do some spraying because we have one machine that is here right now that isn't working with the other 8 trucks. So we will be using that machine this evening and in the morning to do some spraying in Belize City and then tomorrow evening the other trucks will be coming in from Corozal to do that intensive spraying city wide."
"We usually have it under control but the problem probably could be that in Belize we spray week, like I say every 7 days. We do an intensive spraying within 36 hours and then we spray each 7 days after. But the way the city is divided if we spray one area tonight and the other tomorrow that insecticide would blow over that same area that we have sprayed already so it would ease the situation further. That's the reason why we are planning to do some spraying probably the whole week because we have an extra machine to do that."
Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Health announced that it is taking a proactive approach in combatting Dengue with a country wide Ultra Low Volume spraying campaign to, quote, 'reduce the population of adult mosquitoes' and 'prevent the risk of a Dengue outbreak'.
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