She was addressing the monthly meeting of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation in Savanna-la-Mar on January 14.
“As at mid-December, our Aedes index was down to 4.8 per cent. Once you are below five per cent, then you significantly decrease the risk of having vector-borne diseases, so we are doing well,” she said.
The Aedes index refers to the percentage of premises or homes in a limited, well-defined space, where actual breeding of Aedes aegypti is found and the total number of houses examined in that area.
“We are also in the period of the year when you have interruptions in water supply, you also have less rainfall and so safe storage of water has to be maintained if we are going to [keep] these indices low, [so] that we do not have to be worrying about dengue, gastroenteritis and other related diseases while we try to put an even bigger dent into COVID-19,” Dr. Graham said.
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