Hyderabad: GHMC braces to combat mosquito menace

Hyderabad: The entomology wing of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) says it is taking up all precautions and measures to eliminate mosquito menace and thereby dengue and other fatal diseases. A 10-minute information, education and communication (IEC) campaign with local leaders is being held at various places at 10 am on Sundays, in a bid to rally people to do their part in staving off mosquitoes.

A list of all identified larval positive households is being shared with them. Red and green stickers are being pasted to indicate if an area is larva-prone or not. A well-defined pin-point programme includes spraying of temophos, pyrethrum and emptying containers having stagnant water. The programme is being implemented with proper schedule to cover each and every house in every area.

The other activities include releasing gambusia fish in all baby ponds and anti-larva operations through drones. Three drones have been pressed in to spray pyrosine oils in lakes from December 2019 to till date. Eleven more drones will be put to use shortly. Three dedicated units with 50 workers each and headed by two assistant entomologists and two senior entomologists are looking after anti-larva operation (ALO) and fogging operations. An additional unit will also be started from June. A special drone is allotted completely to Musi for next three months to carry out ALO and fogging operations and dedicated six vehicle-mounted fogging machines and 15 portable fogging machines are allotted to cover all the surrounding localities of Musi.

The total number of entomology workers (2,412) are divided into 125 units of 19 members each for the purpose of fully carrying out the objectives.