Mosquito menace returns

After a short-lived respite from mosquitoes and dengue, residents of different parts of Dhaka are now again enduring the menace as the number of culex mosquitoes has been on the rise over last few weeks.

As both city corporations of Dhaka have failed to clean the waterbodies in time, many areas have been riddled with severe mosquito problem since the arrival of winter.

In the absence of clean-up initiative, waterbodies have become mosquito breeding grounds.

Residents of Mirpur, Pallabi, Gandaria, Mohammadpur, Kamrangirchar, Hatirpool, Moghbazar, Manda, Dogair, Dania, Uttarkhan and Adabor seem to be the worst sufferers.

“The number of mosquitoes is too high… Despite shutting all the windows and doors we can’t catch a break,” said Fajilattunnesa (65), a resident of Jafrabad in Mohammadpur.

“We use mosquito net, but it’s not possible to stay inside the net throughout the evening,” she said.

Mainul Huq, also a resident of Mohammadpur area, said mosquito presence has intensified in the neighbourhood over the last month.

“Two or three months back, the situation was fine due to action taken by city corporation after the dengue outbreak. But once again, the mosquito menace has turned acute. I have to use aerosol every night and put up mosquito nets for protection. Otherwise, it’s impossible to sleep at night in peace,” he said.

Aslam Hossain Rony, a resident of Wari, said closing windows and doors -- even from afternoon -- is not of much use.

Around a month back it was tolerable, but situation is fast becoming unbearable; city corporation needs to take immediate measures, he said.

Over the last several years, there has been no initiative to clean the Gandaria DIT plot pond -- a major breeding ground of mosquitoes, said Anisur Rahman, a resident of the area.

“We have already started cleaning waterbodies,” said Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Atiqul Islam last week.

He said they are removing water hyacinth from the ponds.

The DNCC mayor also claimed that the city corporation has initiated a crash programme to kill adult mosquitoes.

“We hope the situation is better compared to that of the same time last year. We’re also positive that we’ll be able to bring things under control this time,” he said.

The mayor said 632 mosquito breeding hotspots were identified in DNCC areas and they have started work to destroy those.

Entomologists will monitor the spots after the drive, he said.

“We are following entomologists’ suggestions to control the rising mosquito population,” Atiqul said.

He said they will submit an integrated vector management project to the ministry concerned by December 20.

Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sayeed Khokon said they have submitted their project proposal around one month back.

“We’ll be able to take effective measures after getting approval of the project but at the moment, we’re doing routine work,” he said.

Dr Manzur Chowdhury, an entomologist and former president of Geological Society of Bangladesh, said mosquito control activities are supervised directly by ward councillors in DNCC areas but many councillors are absent.

He said there are problems in the chain of command and line of communication which need to be resolved.

Dr Manzur also said they have formed a team of entomologists who will identify the hotspots of culex mosquitoes.

DNCC will have to destroy the early population in the hotspots but it could not start the work on time because of which the number of culex has gone up.

But DNCC is trying hard to bring culex mosquito population under control, he said.