The Government on Friday began another phase of its malaria vector control programme as the number of confirmed malaria cases rose to 165.

“The exercise will be carried out by vector control teams from the Ministry of Health and the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department, alongside 60 pesticide control operators from the Jamaica Pest Management Association,” the ministry said in a release Friday. “This latest initiative is a crucial component of the vector control programme established to prevent further malaria transmission in the affected and unaffected areas in the corporate community.”

Meanwhile, Dr Marion Bullock Ducasse, director of the Emergency Management Branch at the health ministry said that work will begin immediately in affected communities under a weekly cycle, while work in the unaffected communities in the Corporate Area will begin on January 3 and continue on a bi-weekly basis.

Dr Bullock Ducasse also explained that the exercise being carried now will help to further rid areas of mosquitoes and their breeding sites and that the teams, totalling 110 vector control personnel, will continue to search for breeding sites as well as conduct fogging activities.

The ministry said that entomological surveys will be carried out up to 1:00 pm each day with fogging exercises between 4:30 pm and 9:00 pm.

This intensive vector control work will help to maintain the decline now seen in the number of daily controlled cases, said Dr Bullock Ducasse.

Two weeks ago, the ministry reported that 50 breeding sites had been found. Of that number, 25 were identified in the Corporate Area, and 24 in St Catherine. The main source of breeding for the Anopheles mosquito in the Corporate Area and St Catherine were identified as ground pool water on underutilised or abandoned property, broken or leaking pipes, drains, gullies and other miscellaneous breeding sites.