Habitat Musnah, Aedes Musnah!!!

Students Aedes Hunters Group

Para pelajar SK. Kukusan melaksanakan kempen pencegahan denggi dan memburu nyamuk aedes demi mempastikan sekolah 'Bebas Denggi'. Aktivti ini adalah di antara program yang dirancang di bawah program 'Dengue Patrol'. 

Disamping memburu aedes, para pelajar dan guru turut mendengar taklimat yang disampaikan oleh guru dan wakil pelajar tentang bahaya aedes. Aktiviti ini diharapkan dapat menyemarakkan perasaan prihatin terhadap kebersihan dan peka terhadap ancaman yang dibawa oleh nyamuk aedes. Bak kata pepatah 'melentur buluh biar daripada rebung' para pelajar tadika SK Kukusan turut menyertai program berkenaan.

Teachers Aedes Hunters Group

Tamatkan Riwayat Denggi

Justeru, bersamalah kita sentiasa memastikan terutama kawasan persekitaran rumah sentiasa bebas dari pembiakan nyamuk Aedes. Sentiasa menukar air yang disimpan serta memasukkan bahan pembunuh jentik-jentik mengikut sukatan yang disyorkan sekurang-kurangnya setiap 2 bulan.

Kompaun sebanyak RM500.00 akan dikenakan sekiranya rumah kita didapati membiak jentik-jentik. Bersamalah kita membentras pembiakan nyamuk Aedes bermula dengan menjaga persekitaran rumah kita disamping berdoa agar sentiasa dijauhkan dari wabak denggi... aamiin.

Denggi! Denggi! Awak Dimana!

      

Di antara tempat-tempat yang telah dikenal pasti sebagai tempat pembiakan utama adalah seperti berikut: tapak pembinaan seperti kereta sorong, tempat membasuh alat, tangki air, lubang-lubang pada tanah, tong-tong dram, bekas makanan dari jenis styreform, kasut getah, alat pembancuh simen, topi keselamatan, bekas makanan dan baldi air, bahan besi yang tidak digunakan, botol air, lubang cerucuk, pembahagi jalan, lantai bangunan, penutup kanvas, kren penyodok, tayar, tin-tin cat, dan saluran air. Sekolah seperti mangkuk tandas, tangki tandas, piring alas dan pasu bunga, leaf axils, tong sampah, perabot dan bekas-bekas yang dibuang, botol minuman, kotak hydrophonic plants, balkoni, kolah hiasan, tempat letak basikal, dan tangki air. Kilang-kilang atau industri seperti dram, tayar buruk, kereta buruk, dan bekas terbiar. Kemudahan kesihatan seperti bekas bunga, aviary (taman burung), talam pendingin hawa, talam bawah peti sejuk, palong air hujan, kotak plastik, piring alas pasu bunga, dan mangkuk tandas. Pejabat kerajaan atau swasta seperti bekas bunga, tangki tandas, talam pendingin hawa, akuarium, dan tempat letak bendera.

Kawasan perumahan seperti kolah mandi, tempayan, piring alas pasu bunga, talam bawah peti sejuk, pasu bunga, baldi plastik, dram dan perangkap semut. Kawasan kedai seperti saluran air hujan, baldi, pasu bunga, tayar, bekas-bekas terbiar, botol, tin, tempurung, pokok keladi, dan balkoni. Tempat permainan kanak-kanak seperti pelepah, daun-daun, bekas terbiar, alat-alat permainan kanak-kanak, paip-paip besi, terowong mainan, dan buaian tayar. Tempat perkuburan seperti pasu bunga, tin-tin, lubang batu nisan, dan bekas makanan. Aedes dapat dihapuskan sama sekali sekiranya semua tempat-tempat dan perkara-perkara yang menjadi tempat pembiakannya dapat dimusnahkan. Cara pencegahannya: gunakan aerosol sewaktu tidur, tidur dalam kelambu, gunakan ubat pembunuh jentik-jentik (abate) setiap tiga bulan, tutup semua bekas menyimpan.

Sabah dengue cases leap 223.6%

A TOTAL of 1,055 dengue fever cases were reported from January to March 28, a rise of 729 cases or 223.6 per cent compared to 326 cases for the same period last year.

Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Edward Yong Oui Fah told the State Legislative Assembly sitting yesterday that there were two dengue fatalities from the total, one each in Kota Kinabalu and Semporna.

Replying to a question by Limus Jury (BN-Kuala Penyu), Yong said Kota Kinabalu and Penampang were the two districts with the highest number of dengue cases.

“During the period, 567 cases were reported in Kota Kinabalu, an increase of 463 cases or 743.9 percent compared to 104 cases during the same period last year while in Penampang, there were 156 cases, an increase of 2,500 percent, compared to only six cases during the same period last year,” he said.

According to Yong, 174 personnel from the State Health Department were monitoring the trend and had launched several mega operations since March to check the spread of the disease.
The Sabah Health Department has taken preventive and control measures at high-risk dengue localities such as Likas by imposing compounds on owners of positive Aedes breeding premises, entomology research activities and mosquito larviciding (insect larval life stage insecticide) to eliminate Aedes larvae, Yong said.

Besides that, home inspections, elimination of Aedes mosquito breeding grounds and fogging to eliminate adult Aedes mosquitoes had also been done, he added.

Yong said fogging had been undertaken once a week and repeated within seven or 10 days from the first fogging. The dengue-hit Kampung Likas, Taman Kemajuan Likas, Kampung Likas Lama and Kampung Cenderamata 2 were now under control.

In addition, he said the government was also collaborating with community leaders, government agencies and NGOs to implement specific activities such as gotong royong to control the issue.

Sources:
-Borneo Post-

Beauty and the Pest: Flowers kill Aedes

PETALING JAYA: One of the most effective ways of combating dengue is to beautify the environment with flowering plants, according an environmental health expert.

Veeramohan Supramaniam, a spokesman for the Malaysian Association of Environmental Health (MAEH), said mosquitoes would often become sluggish upon feeding on nectar, making them easy prey to bigger insects, spiders, frogs and lizards.

“We have to re-establish these creatures in the urban landscape with flowering decorative plants rather than palm trees and cactii that don’t flower,” he told FMT in a recent interview.

He said the relevant authorities are moving towards such a change.

Veeramohan, through MAEH, has been conducting field research and epidemiological studies to learn more about the dengue threat and is engaged in advising the authorities on ways to refine the existing prevention programme, which is based on World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

He said the WHO guidelines focused on outbreaks at residential units. He acknowledged that programmes based on those guidelines had helped contain the dengue menace, but only to some extent.

With the changing urban landscape of Malaysia, he said, the “old paradigm has to be questioned and re-tested” and a method taking account of new research and data should be applied.

Pioneer methods

He said a dengue outbreak was something “totally preventable”.

One of the programmes he recommends is bio-diversification, and that would include the greening up of urban areas with flowering plants. He said this would have to be implemented by local governments because vacant land and open areas in urban centres are not under the purview of the Health Ministry.

Having already worked with the Kuala Lumpur City Council and having seen great reductions in dengue cases and hot spots, Veeramohan is confident that the pioneer methods that he and his associates advocate will reduce overall cases in a given city or town within weeks.

“We are working towards these new methods of dengue management, which are preventive, by getting rid of the Aedes breeding grounds,” he said.

“Its a simple process. Local authorities will serve a notice to owners of land that might serve as breeding ground, failing which they will clean it up themselves and claim the cost later.”
MAEH seeks to empower the public with education on good practices in fighting dengue.

Veeramoham urged citizens to contact the association through their neighbourhood associations to request lectures or seminars.

He said programmes based on the WHO guidelines had resulted in a drastic reduction in dengue cases among people who tended to be confined to the home – the very young, the very old and those with limited mobility.

“Conversely, we found that people who are very mobile, especially school children, are exposing themselves to bites from mosquitoes in the open spaces,” he said.

“These open space mosquitoes are almost never a target of control by the Ministry of Health because open spaces are local authority areas.”

Different species

MAEH has found through research that the new dominant vector of the dengue virus is an outdoor native species called Aedes albopictus, commonly known as the Asian Tiger Mosquito.

“This mosquito is not the species that is emphasized in WHO programmes. They emphasize Aedes aegypti, an important species nonetheless.”

Veeramohan said repeated control measures in residential areas, including fogging had helped lower the Aedes aegypti’s breeding rate due to the fragile nature of the species.

Speaking of Aedes albopictus, he said this species would pick up the dengue virus from healthy human carriers (one or two days prior to showing symptoms) during feeding outdoors in the city, and could pass on the infection to healthy people.

Veeramohan also revealed what he called an “inconvenient truth” from his research – that both the species don’t lay their eggs on water, contrary to popular belief.

“The lay their eggs on the damp inner walls of containers and even on flat surfaces such as on the ground, and then wait for rain water to flood them,” he said.

“The longer the eggs have stayed dry, the faster they hatch when flooded with water. They can stay dried up under vegetation cover and remain viable for two to three years.”

The “double jeopardy”, according to Veeramohan, is that these eggs are also infected with the dengue virus, passed on by the parent mosquitoes. Upon maturing, the mosquitoes that hatch from them would go on to infect new victims.

Originally part of the ecosystem of the tropical rain forest, Aedes albopictus’ population has boomed with the removal of its natural predators resulting from the rapid clearing of forests for residential and commercial development, according to Veeramohan.

On top of that, heavy fogging has also reduced the number of dragonflies, which he says is one of the best predators of mosquitoes, both in water and in the air.

Sources: FMT News

Non Stop War for AEDES

Aktiviti mengawal nyamuk adalah satu proses yang berterusan kerana nyamuk aedes membiak tidak bermusim