Our culture, and society on a whole, is replete with warnings on prevention that often get largely ignored. Truth is, we are a reactive people and not proactive. And so, we read in Friday’s edition of this newpaper a caution that too many seemed to not have noticed.

We wished that it would have gone viral in the way information of much less import takes on wings on social media. But, alas, not a peep.

Sherine Huntley Jones, medical entomologist in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, has forewarned that Jamaicans should expect to see more rodents, flies, and mosquito-breeding sites around their houses due to the impact of Hurricane Beryl.

Indications are that, even with the winds gone, left in the wake are pestilence of potentially devastating proportions, if not managed.

The problem before us is that we, as a nation, seem not to be listening.

“Following an event such as Hurricane Beryl we are likely to have an increase in mosquito-breeding, flies, and rodents for various reasons. Rats live in burrows and once those are flooded out they are going to seek refuge in our homes, so usually after a flooding event we are likely to see an increase in rodents in our homes and an increase in human-to-rodent contact and there are oftentimes going to be an increase in the fly population because of the accumulation of solid waste,” she said during a press conference on Thursday at the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

Too often the prevention is better than cure mantra is given mere lip service, and recited out of convenience and not importance.

For that very reason the alert sounded by Huntley Jones is a clear and present threat if we do not act on her recommendations.

“Rats like water, food, and they are looking for somewhere to live, but you can’t entertain them, [and] if you are providing water and access to food then you are entertaining them, and so in order to chase them away you have to make the environment uncomfortable, and that is simply by just removing access to foods,” Huntley Jones said.

“Anywhere water is now settling and stands for over seven days we are going to have breeding in those water bodies, and this will result in the increase in the mosquito population, and we are seeing this in a lot of our communities that would have been affected following the passage of Hurricane Beryl,” she explained.

“A solution that we have been promoting for many years is the use of the drum cover. It is very effective in reducing the breeding of the Aedes aegypti and this was promoted as a solution for our population in Jamaica because our main breeding sites are those 45 gallon drums,” said Huntley Jones.

In fairness, the Ministry of Health and Wellness has been running public education campaigns on reducing the breeding sites for mosquitoes, but still we see not much widespread behaviour change.

Our health sector can nary contend with the regular traffic, any outbreak would overwhelm its capacity.

As of July 16, Jamaica has recorded 1,406 suspected and probable cases of dengue since the start of the year, with only five of these cases being confirmed alongside one confirmed death. However, between 2023 and 2024 Jamaica recorded 29 dengue-related deaths, 19 of which is suspected and 10 confirmed.

Still, at risk of sounding cliché, we in this space must still add to her call, “Prevention better than cure”, because who “cyaan hear will feel”.