MRCU plans Aedes aegypti bombardment
Mosquito Research & Control Unit plane in action
(CNS): Armed with a boost in resources from government, new equipment and specialist insecticides, the Mosquito Research & Control Unit is planning to bombard the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito in order to protect the community from the inevitable arrival of the Zika virus. During a press conference Tuesday about plans to deal with the virus, which is mostly a threat to pregnant women, the MRCU said its campaign will be executed in two phases and phase one is already underway.
MRCU Director Dr William Petrie said this mosquito is very different from other species and one of the hardest to control because it lives in and around homes and yards, bites only humans and breeds in containers rather than pools or swamp.
In the first phase of the campaign, which he described as the pre-emptive strike before Zika arrives, the MRCU has switched from targeting larvae to targeting adult mosquitoes because it is the adults that transmit the virus. Using two different types of insecticide to prevent resistance, the unit will begin a twice weekly aerial spraying over West Bay and George Town, where the mosquitoes are known to be in the highest concentration. Dr Petrie said they plan to spray other areas but those districts are the priority.
On the ground, the fogging trucks will begin work sector by sector across George Town. MRCU staff, using hand-held heated sprays, will be going house to house to inspect water in containers and remove potential breeding sites, as well as spraying roof guttering and other areas where the Aedes aegypti breeds.
“We will also be using an experimental device, which is an egg pot that attracts the mosquito that contains a growth suppressant,” Dr Petrie said.
When, as seems inevitable, Zika arrives in Cayman, the MRCU will move to phase two, which will be an intensified campaign on adult Aedes aegypti and a redeployment from all other control work. In this phase, all the trucks will be out morning and evening to conduct an intense fogging in places where the patients with the virus live and work.
However, Dr Petrie said Zika is different from other viruses and is “breaking all the rules”, so the MRCU would be flexible and respond to the circumstances of how the situation unfolds.
He said the MRCU is acquiring lab equipment so they can test for the presence of the virus because they cannot wait for overseas medical results. This will not be a medical diagnostic test, but with a sample of blood from infected patients, the scientists will be able to test in minutes rather weeks for dengue, chikungunya or Zika. This will enable MRCU staff to know where the virus is so they concentrate their attacks on the mosquito before medical test results are in.
Stressing that the Aedes aegypti only breeds around the home in buckets and drums and not in the swamp, Dr Petrie said the public can help to combat them by inspecting their own yards and gardens.
“The mosquitoes don’t travel far,” he noted, explaining that they only bite humans and therefore live and breed close to them. Anything left outside that can collect water, such as empty plant pots and old tyres, should be removed, Dr Petrie said, warning that the Aedes aegypti bites during the day, not at sunset or after dark, and urging people to take precautions.
The Zika virus has been declared a global medical emergency by the World Health Organization because of concerns it is directly linked to the massive increase in cases of microcephaly in South America where there are outbreaks. As health officials prepare for the arrival of Zika here, Premier Alden McLaughlin, who is also the health minister, said government was providing the necessary resources.
“The Mosquito Research & Control Unit is recognised as being one of the best and most experienced mosquito eradication entities in the region and because of that Cayman has been very successful in controlling the numbers of Aedes aegypti,” he said. “It is because of the work of the MRCU that we know where the greatest numbers of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are on Grand Cayman, so we are able to concentrate mosquito elimination measures in those areas. Fortunately, the Aedes aegypti has not established itself on the Sister Islands.”
As McLaughlin also urged the public to help, he said government was redoubling efforts to control the Aedes aegypti, including finding any additional resources needed to address the problem.
Category: Health, Medical Health
Is there any danger to the low flying MRCU plane from Drones? Shouldn’t Drones be prohibited, not only from the Airport and Prison area, but anywhere the MRCU plane operates?
This would be a good cover for spraying some very powerful birth control in gang infested areas of Cayman.
It’s impossible to predict exactly what would happen: the food chain is a chaotic system and a change like that is going to have unpredictable consequences. Everybody is somebody’s food, and there are enough mosquitos that they form a nontrivial part of the food supply. Whoever eats them would presumably switch to something else, which would decrease the number of those (and it would be different for each of the mosquito predators). That would shift other equilibria down the line: some things would increase, others decrease.
Eventually, some new equilibrium would be found (at least, “equilibrium” with respect to the seasonal and other variations in the climate) but it’s impossible to predict what it will be. It’s entirely possible that it’s nothing human beings would notice; the ecosystem is very dense, and if one of the 10,000 lakes in Minnesota shifted from one species of trout to another, would human beings care? Probably not, but the change is real.
Even more importantly, the thing that caused them to die would almost certainly have far-reaching consequences itself. Real environmental situations rarely target just one species that way.
What benefit do mosquitoes offer the human community? The burden imposed by mosquitoes has stimulated jobs in the design, testing, manufacture, distribution and application of pesticides, anti-malarial agents, bed nets, window screens, specialized earth moving equipment for source reduction, etc. Mosquitoes, mosquito-borne disease and pesticide-related issues are the focus of researchers, clinicians and political advocates. Hence, mosquitoes provide the incentive for diverse kinds of jobs, products and services.
For those people that don’t know the law here it is
Mosquito Research and control unit law for property inspections
Establishment of Unit and Fund
Inspection of premises
Inspection and spraying of buildings
Inspection of refuse dumps
Vessels containing water
“premises” includes land areas which may or may not be built on other than those occupied by commercial and domestic premises;
“reclamation” means raising the land level above flooding, either by dumping, canalisation, spoil transfer or hydraulic dredging and transfer;
“ship” means a yacht, speed boat and every other description of vessel used in navigation, not exclusively propelled by oars;
“survey” includes the entry upon and clearance of land for the purpose of establishing alignment of canals, dykes and approach roads and location of swamp and other inaccessible areas;
“swamp area” means land subject to permanent or intermittent flooding and supporting mangrove, buttonwood and other halophytic vegetation;
“unoccupied land” includes vacant and temporarily vacated land not being commercial or domestic premises; and
“Unit” means the Mosquito Research and Control Unit established under section 3.
3. (1) There is established the Mosquito Research and Control Unit for the Islands consisting of a Director and such other persons as may, from time to time, be employed in its service.
(2) There is established, under the control of the Financial Secretary, the Mosquito Abatement Fund, into which are paid monies realised from time to time from the sale or development of lands placed under physical control or reclaimed by the Government under this Law. The fund is used to help further the purposes of this Law.
4. Members of the Unit have access at any time to any premises, whether fenced or not, in order to inspect or survey the same and their ancillary domestic structures.
5. A member of the Unit carrying an identification card signed by the Director shall have access to domestic and commercial premises in the presence of the owner or occupier to inspect them during daylight hours and apply approved insecticide there as the Director may deem desirable.
6. Members of the Unit have access at all times to inspect domestic and commercial refuse dumps.
7. Owners and occupiers of premises, including domestic and commercial premises, shall place all tanks, drums, vats or other receptacles for the storage of water in such a position that they are reasonably accessible for inspection.
http://www.gov.ky/portal/pls/portal/docs/1/11525209.PDF
Wow! Go get ’em MRCU!
A terrifying imposition on civil liberty. I’ll take the $200 fine plus the $10 a day than let the state trample all over my home like some socialist state.
Maybe you have something to hide maybe drugs growing in the back yard.
Maybe I do.
What about the 12 months imprisonment it’s for your good and others Zika is nothing to play with
Everyone knows no-one is going to be jailed for this. Not for years and years and years, bY which time the scare mongering will have died down.
These are the last days my friend. There is no one on this earth who can do to stop these atrocities. Wars, diseases, nations against nations. Just read the headlines all over . Look what’s happening in the UK next. Trials and tribulations. We must heed the signs of the times as judgment day is very near.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article1662645.ece
There’s no such thing as “judgement day” or “end times” so you better roll up your sleeves and get to work making this world a better place. Defeatism is only going to hurt you.
Rubbish! I cut open a pomegranate last night and in the middle was a perfect image of the Easter Bunny.
The end times are near, we must gather chocolate as an offering.
Probably best to leave it at my place.
It has come to pass that pestilence and war is the sign of the end times to come.
Time for those that are blessed to assemble; the Greeks, the Cheesemakers and those that have had a hell of a time.
It is still a sign by anyone’s standards.
Yeh, so give up all your assets to the church now since you won’t be needing them.
Pastor needs a new Merc!
Religious people are the only kind that hope for end times. Y’all are crazy and need to calm down. The real issue is climate change and over population. 2 things the church does nothing to help sort out.
Well, the pope encyclicaled that you should stop climate change and he doesn’t have any kids, so … lets call it a wash on ‘the’ church (as if there were only one) ‘not doing anything for my pet causes’.
But weigh it against covering up child abuse, viciously persecuting journalists who expose Vatican corruption and the interference in family planning policy worldwide to the global detriment of female rights. Encyclicate that in your incense pipe and smoke it.
Nice to see a gov’t department on the roll with this
On what basis does someone going door to door have a legal right to enter my property and tell me what to do on it?
None.
But why wouldn’t everyone accept the personal attention of MRCU to educate safeguard themselves, family, and community if it was being offered?
Unlike the average joe, the MRCU know what the eggs look like and where they are likely to be laid. They can survive in dry egg form for months if not years. Let them destroy the eggs and educate on habitat reduction.
What kind of asinine bozo would refuse this?
Absent a warrant no government agent is setts foot in my land.
Then you’re part of the problem. If Zika takes hold in Cayman. We’ll ALL come knocking on your door!
Zika will anyway and government agents trampling all through my property without my permission is going to make no difference.
12:38 you sound like a first year law student…..just stop
I want to know what they’re spraying. Are we going to have a spike in cancer rates years down the line? And I don’t want anyone spraying anything in my yard that might hurt my dogs.
Detailed fact sheets on every chemical in their inventory is in the facts section of MRCU website. DDT hasn’t been sprayed since 1970s, when A Aegypti was almost cleared from the planet.
As long as your dogs are ok the whole human population of Cayman can go screw itself. I appreciate your selfless humanity. Lord forbid that it happens, but should a pregnant mother contract Zika you go and explain your view in person. Take a bodyguard. Several in fact.
So we all have to be exposed to carcinogens because of the feminist lobby?
Another doctor in the house? Who said anything about carcogens? If you don’t like pregnant women just get right out of your closet!!
Zika does not do anything to pregnant women compared to the rest of the population.
because people like you needs protection from yourselves
Can’t fix stupid
May be it is is “breaking all the rules” because of GM mosquitos?
Google: “Pandora’s Box: How GM Mosquitos Could Have Caused the Zika Virus Outbreak.”by OLIVER TICKELL.
Conspiracy subreddits are a bad place to get information. The PiggyBac system cannot insert additional DNA into the Zika genome: Zika has no DNA. It’s a single strand RNA virus roughly 10.8kb in size. The PiggyBac system can’t insert anything without TTAA elements in a DNA genome. That’s not even mentioning that the transposon used by Oxitec is 8.4kb – so almost the same size as the entire virus! That kind of modification would not go unnoticed!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2016/01/31/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-didnt-start-zika-ourbreak/#comment-2163
Que?
Que? A: The real science indicates that the GMO-Mosies didn’t cause Zika to turn dangerous. It the alteration to the mosquitos, if passed to the virus (through an unknown process) would have so altered the virus as to make it very, very, very, obvious. Like Donald Trump and Barak Obama switching skin colours after sharing a Chinese food dinner.
The problem of science vs conspiracy: Science says ‘probably not’ since getting an absolute 0% or absolute 100% is pretty much 0%. (The sun will, probably, rise in the east tomorrow and set in the west. Barring an overnight global magnetic field reversal which has never happened. As far as we know.) Conspiracy says ‘it might be so’ and lack of evidence is actually evidence of the conspiracy to hide the evidence. In other words its impossible to disprove a conspiracy meme. (Theory is too good a word for conspiracy ramblings.)