St. Elizabeth Adds 40 Temporary Vector-Control Workers

The St. Elizabeth Health Department has added 40 temporary vector-control workers as the parish ramps up efforts to prevent transmission of mosquito-borne illnesses.

While addressing the monthly meeting of the St. Elizabeth Municipal Corporation in Black River on Thursday (June 9), the Chief Public Health Inspector for the parish, Everod Lewis, said that the temporary team complements the 16-member permanent staff.

He explained that the temporary workers are currently undergoing orientation and, in short order, will be carrying out vector-control and public-education activities in various high-risk communities.

“We’ll be doing it on a rotational basis, based on communication with our vector-control officer,” Mr. Lewis indicated.

“Also, what will happen is that some of these temporary workers will be working in a particular geographical area for a particular time. Then we will pull some from other areas to make sure that we can maximise the resources that we have at our disposal,” he added.

Mr. Lewis said there must be increased focus on vector-control activities from the June to October period to help reduce the spread of dengue and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

He noted that the parish is seeing a slight uptick in the Aedes index, which was recorded at 11.9 per cent in May in comparison to 10.5 per cent in April.

He pointed out that fogging activities have been carried out in the communities of Oxford, Cambridge, Hopewell, Williamsfield, Brompton and Braes River among others in the parish.

“Moving forward, we are waiting to see what the weather pattern is going to look like and see how we proceed from there,” Mr. Lewis said.