Years ago, when the economic crisis did not grip the island, the fumigation in Havana to combat the mosquito Aedes aegypti it was done house by house, with advance notice, on a certain day in the summer. Those days will never come back.
Now, the fight against the insect responsible for the transmission of diseases such as dengue, zika or chikungunya is carried out in neighborhoods, improvised, with vehicles that fill the air with poison and gasoline (the indicated product contains 25% cypermethrin diluted in oil as solvent). So it was this Monday in the Havana neighborhood of Nuevo Vedado.
“It’s been many years since I’ve seen fumigation like this,” says a neighbor of the place before the stinking smoke. “Dengue must be rampant for her respect”
“It’s been many years since I’ve seen fumigation like this,” says a neighbor of the place before the stinking smoke. “Dengue must be rampant because of her respect.”
The Minister of Public Health of Cuba, José Ángel Portal Miranda, recently recognized that there a disease outbreak across the countryalthough he assured that the Government is “in a position to reverse the situation.”
In any case, the island’s own health authorities recommend that after fumigating, the product must be left for a period of almost an hour. “If we don’t leave the house closed for 45 minutes after applying the treatment, the mosquito leaves, the microdroplet doesn’t fall on top of it -the mechanism that causes its death- and we have lost time and fuel and, what is worse, it mosquitoes and the focus that generates the transmission,” explained last year Carilda Peña García, the national director of Surveillance and Anti-Vector Control of the Ministry of Health, during the campaign against the Aedes aegypti. How is this condition met outdoors?
Fumigation has also been the target of popular criticism for the frequency with which campaign operators steal part of the product or fuel and replace it with mixtures that do not fulfill the function of exterminating insects in addition to causing greater allergic reactions in people.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
