Tackling the mosquito menace

The monsoons have finally set in Hyderabad. The monsoon always brings along a pleasant downpour, dilapidated roads and the mosquito menace. This year the GHMC has been trying it’s best to curb the mosquito menace in the city. Hyderabad is one such city in which the Urban Malaria Scheme (UMS) has been implemented. The UMS has been doing everything in its power to bring down the number of mosquitoes in the city and prevent malaria from reaching the status of an epidemic.

The UMS currently has a man power of 123 people. It also has 140 portable fogging machines and 15 vehicles mounted with fogging machines. The UMS has implemented a three step process in the city to curb the rise of mosquitoes and malaria. As per their three step process:

SAnti-Larval Operations: In this particular step, there will be a three member team who will visit each and every house in most of the neighbourhoods in the city, every week. Out of the three member team, there will be one Superior Field Worker(SFW) and two field workers present.

They will go around to each house and identify all the areas where there is a possibility of any larval growth. After the identification they will go ahead and administer DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) in those particular areas. This process will be done on a weekly basis.

S Open areas and water bodies: Locations where there is a chance of water logging like, small ponds and open sewers will also be administered with the insecticide. As there is high possibility of these areas turning into large breeding grounds for mosquitoes. They have also identified a few open spaces like parks and playgrounds where there is a chance of the mosquito population increasing.

S Indoor Residual Spray (IRS): In this step the workers, after receiving permission from the residents of a particular house, will go in and spray chemicals like DDT. This step is being done to ensure that malaria is eradicated at the most basic level itself.
J Vijay Kumar, Senior Entomologist, South Zone, UMS, said, “In the entire stretch of Hyderabad, Malkajgiri has had the highest number of malaria cases this season. We have had reports of 28 cases of malaria so far. It is because in that area there is quite a lot of open space and there are two open water bodies in the vicinity which is a haven for mosquito breeding.”

He further went on to say that the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) has instructed them to use DDT only in Hyderabad as that is the best suited insecticide for the type of mosquito population that the city possesses. It is the NVBDCP which has identified the use of DDT for Hyderabad whereas in Ranga Reddy District they have instructed us to use malathion,” said the Entomologist .The UMS’s motive is to prevent the further increase of the mosquito population by identifying all the breeding grounds and eliminating the mosquitoes in their larval stage itself.