Saturday, December 29, 2007 Editorials: Lagoons and the spread of dengue
WITH the way top Cebu City Hall officials are leading the supposed fight against the spread of dengue fever one is prompted to ask whether they are consulting experts.
After making a spectacle of themselves with their noise over a body of water inside a private lot in Labangon, they are shifting their attention on a lagoon in Lahug.
And it looks like they will use the same strategy in the Labangon pond on the Lahug lagoon, like introducing predatory fishes supposedly to eat mosquito larvae.
Breeding place
The drive to eliminate breeding places of dengue is noble, but questions have been raised on whether or not a pool of dirty water can be breeding ground of Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier of the killer dengue virus.
The water of the lagoon in Labangon is so dirty the Badjaos tasked to clean it backed off, even as city health officials didn’t believe fishes would survive in it.
If the anti-dengue campaign in Labangon and Lahug were to succeed, the matter of whether the said pools of water are really Aedes aegypti mosquito breeding grounds should be resolved first so the effort and resources poured into it won’t be wasted.
Just because incidents of dengue fever is high in these barangays does not mean the lagoon-is-the-source theory should be immediately embraced.
Community-based
Traditionally, mosquitoes that spread the dengue virus breed in containers used in storing water for household use and other items that collect rainwater, like used tires.
Thus, in community-based anti-dengue campaigns, the focus is on improved water storage practices, like covering water containers.
A World Health Organization fact sheet also conceded that certain mosquito-eating species of fish and tiny crustaceans have been used with some degree of success in eliminating vector mosquitoes, aside from the application of insecticides.
Households
But that presupposes that mosquito breeding places are pinpointed well.
The problem with concentrating too much on the lagoon is that it could distract the residents’ attention away from the more effective community-based drive to eliminate breeding places of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the households.
