St James’ Aedes mosquito index up to 19 per cent
Published:Monday | October 17, 2022 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
ALTHOUGH ST James has recorded no cases of dengue fever recently, the parish’s Aedes index, which measures the local mosquito population, continues to be a concern for the St James Health Department with the index for September moving to 19 per cent.
Addressing last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Health Department, public health inspector Nadia Burgess noted that the Aedes index for September is an increase over the index which was recorded in August.
“The Aedes Egypti index has further increased to 19 per cent, coming from 17 per cent in the previous month. There was also persistent rainfall on many days, which led to more communities having water settlements,” Burgess told the meeting.
“With the increase in rainfall, does it mean an increase in mosquitoes?” Montego Bay’s Mayor Leeroy Williams, who chaired the meeting, asked for clarity.
“Yes, but there are no cases of dengue at this time, thankfully,” Burgess replied.
There was good news as well, however, as the meeting was told that more communities across St James were inspected for mosquito breeding sites compared to August.
“Due to the reinstatement of the task worker programme on September 5, which saw the temporary employment of 40 individuals, the parish was able to cover 81 communities, which is a huge increase compared to 27 visited in the previous month,” said Burgess. “We were able to cover 10,678 premises, which is a major increase compared to 3,743 premises done in the previous month, and 2,046 premises were positive for mosquito breeding.”
St James’ Aedes mosquito index has been persistently unstable, with numbers rising and falling in different months since 2020. The highest Aedes index record to date was 25.6 per cent in October 2020, while the lowest was four per cent in July 2021.
During this year, the parish’s index was 12.6 per cent in January, 10.8 per cent in February, and then dropped further to a record 6.2 per cent in March before shooting back up to 10.8 per cent in April. The month of May saw the index increase to 17.3 per cent, then decreasing to 16 per cent in June and 10 per cent in July, before rising again to 17 per cent in August.
INFLUENCED BY RAINS
The most recent record for September was likely to have been influenced by the rains which pelted St James and other sections of Jamaica during the passage of the then Tropical Storm Ian, which also resulted in land slippages in several parishes.
Additionally, while the St James Health Department had made use of its vector control worker programme with 40 temporary workers, that number was still less than the 94 workers who had previously participated in the health department’s fogging and breeding-control exercises in 2020.
Burgess also told Thursday’s meeting that while October marked the beginning of the local flu season, flu vaccines will be made available for residents of St James.
“The flu season commenced in October, and the St James Public Health Services had flu vaccines in as of Friday, October 14. These will be available across the parish at all 22 health centres,” said Burgess.