Over 661 detections in one week:

Private buildings, the biggest mosquito breeders

by Carol Aloysius

Privately owned buildings are the biggest breeders in spreading the dengue disease, a spokesman for the All Island Public Health Inspectors Union said.

“We conducted an Anti-Mosquito campaign recently in seven high-risk areas, Colombo, Kandy, Puttalam, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Ratnapura and Polonnaruwa.

Our officers detected that the breeding sites were mostly in shops, supermarkets, boutiques, food outlets and some offices”, All Island Public Health Inspectors Union Secretary A.M. Senarath told the Sunday Observer. The inspectors had visited 5235 sites during the week-long campaign ending Friday and detected 661 breeding grounds for the dengue carrying vector.

“We issue notice on 457 people and initiated legal action against 203 offenders. All mosquito breeders will be dealt with severely”, he said. He deplored the indifferent attitude of the management in private and government institutes to the looming dengue threat and added that only a handful, 10 percent had heeded the Health Ministry directive to submit monthly reports on their immediate environment to their MOHs. “Ninety percent flagrantly ignore this directive despite many reminders from the Health Ministry”, he said.

The Union would launch an Anti Mosquito campaign shortly in schools in the high risk areas, and later extend it to other areas.