VECTOR control officer at the Westmoreland Health Department, Ryan Morris, says more than 6,000 premises were inspected for Aedes aegypti mosquito-breeding sites in the first week of July.

Morris told JIS News that this was carried out by the new cohort of Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) programme workers.

He outlined that the programme, which started on July 1 and consists of 88 vector control workers, is also helping the department to cover more areas in the parish.

Morris said this is possible due to the department’s method, which involves the formation of groups made up of HOPE programme workers who are deployed across the parish to conduct vector control activities.

“We have groups of eight persons, with one acting as a supervisor. So, we have 11 of those groups, which are scattered across the parish with a focus on some communities, with the expectation that we will have revisit times, so that we can do evaluations,” he noted.

Morris added that the remainder of the parish is being covered by the department’s permanent vector control team, “so with the number of [HOPE workers] we are in a position to do biweekly visits in some areas”.

The vector control officer explained that the aim of home visits is to treat premises that have mosquito-breeding sites.

“So, we are going around identifying and destroying mosquito-breeding sites, whether by turning over containers or adding cooking oil or adding of larvicide to water,” he noted.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible for transmitting dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses.