BMC slaps notices to over 4k establishments for failing to control mosquito breeding

Officials from BMC’s insecticide department said despite imposing fines,there has been little community participation. The residents of high-rise buildings are the main violators. “A total of 135 court cases have been registered by the corporation against individuals, who have ignored the notices,” said an officer from BMC.

In January, the department inspected all the government and semi-government premises. On May 3, the mosquito abatement committee held a meeting with 21 government agencies and handed over the list of water tanks that need to be treated to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes before the onset of monsoon. “Construction sites become one of the main sources of malaria spread. Workers often become carriers without showing symptoms. So, when an Aedes mosquito feeds on a carrier, it gets infected and spreads to others,” said the officer.

To contain the spread of the vector-borne disease, the BMC conducted indoor residual spraying—in which the walls of the construction sites are coated with residual insecticides that rapidly reduces malaria transmission.

To curb rodent population, the BMC killed over 2.57 lakh rats in six months, especially in areas that report flooding during monsoon. “Any four-legged mammal can spread Leptospirosis and rat is one of them. We killed as many as possible as a precautionary measure,” said the officer. Apart from spearing rats, the pesticide department also kills rats by poison baiting, spraying poisonous gases in burrows and using rat traps.

Meanwhile, civic-run hospitals have started increasing the number of beds to treat monsoon-related illness. “We have instructed all the hospitals to keep beds and medicines ready. We just don’t get patients with mosquito-borne diseases, many come with viral fever and infection also,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, the executive health officer, BMC.

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She also informed the BMC has changed the monitoring system. “Earlier, we only used to consider patients who were admitted to civic or government hospitals. But now, the reporting has been shifted to the Integrated Health Information Portal which will now connect all major, peripheral, dispensaries and clinics together,” she said.