Minister for Health and Medical Services Rosy Akbar has stressed that chemical spraying is not the answer to dengue or mosquito control and the basic and primary solution is to destroy the breeding grounds.
Akbar says people need to change their attitude and exercise greater responsibility in taking care of the environment and destroying all places where dengue causing mosquitoes could breed.
She made these comments in Parliament today after National Federation Party’s MP, Pramod Chand asked Akbar to inform why her Ministry has not taken a major mosquito spraying campaign despite the major outbreak of dengue fever.
However, Akbar informed the Parliamentarians that spraying program has been ongoing since last November.
She says they believe that spraying chemicals in the environment should be used with caution as it can have some degree of negative impact on the environmental health.
1,040 confirmed dengue fever cases have been reported to date.
The Ministry of Health had earlier declared an outbreak of dengue fever in Nadi and Ba where 312 confirmed cases in the Western Division were recorded since the beginning of this year.
