Friday, December 11, 2009

ZOOMLION CALLS FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION (PAGE 29, DEC 11)

Zoomlion, a waste management company, has called for community participation in the nationwide mosquito control programme being undertaken by the company, with sponsorship from the Ministry of Health, to ensure the success of the national exercise.
It noted that the practice where mosquito-prone areas were sprayed by the company’s spraying gangs, only for people to return within days to dump refuse again, was a disincentive to the success of the programme.
The nationwide mosquito control programme had the overall goal of reducing the incidence of malaria in the country.
The Ashanti Regional Vector Control Officer of Zoomlion, Mr Le-Roy Gyimah-Boadi, told the Daily Graphic in Kumasi that such an exercise demanded the participation of all the people in order to achieve the desired results.
He noted that mosquitoes were a menace that continued to create not only health, but also economic problems for the people, as thousands of people continued to report daily at the health institutions with malaria, adding that that was why Zoomlion was doing everything possible to ensure that the very source of mosquito breeding was attacked.
Mr Gyimah-Boadi said 656 people, made up of both sexes, had been recruited and trained to handle mosquito control in the region using various approaches.
They had been grouped into gangs and were operating in the sub-metropolitan areas and, the municipal and district assemblies.
Mr Gyimah-Boadi said currently, the spraying gangs were doing source reduction and source modification in the communities across the region.
Source reduction involve eliminating the source of breeding of the mosquitoes, while source modification is the changing of the original breeding grounds.
Mr Gyimah-Boadi further indicated that his outfit was also spraying public toilets, refuse dumps and other areas identified by environmental officers in the sub-metros and the assemblies.
He stated that Zoomlion had acquired a powerful insecticide for larvaeciding (killing of mosquito larvae), and what was more refreshing was that the insecticide was injurious to only mosquitoes.
The officer commended the district assemblies for supporting the programme with public education.
He also expressed hope that the programme would achieve significant success by the end of this year.

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