Transcript
CHARLIE AVE: The problems so far we have identified are people are keeping junk, motor parts, whiteware waste, Ewaste, and all general waste around their properties. Also we have anticipated there will be problems with our septic tanks, water will be seeping through some septic tanks and we have so far identified around three of them, that is our first priority to make sure it is desludged. Also pigs, keeping of animals within residential areas. Animals causes smell, offensive odour and it sometimes brings in flies so therefore we have asked people to move their pigs away, at least fifty metres from any dwelling.
JO O'BRIEN: So are all of these factors contributing to a rise in mosquito breeding sites?
CA: That's correct, at the moment because we've been through heavy rainfall we are anticipating there will be increasing mosquito population but it doesn't mean that we will be having dengue, chikungunya or zika outbreak. It's a high population of mosquitoes and our boys, our health protection officers are scheduled to do a larvicide programme and survey properties where all the possible mosquito breeding sites can be identified and at the same time apply a larvicide, we call it a Vectobac, we apply in all stagnant waters or anything that holds water. That is our first line of defence. And secondly we have a paid service to spray individual properties with a minimum cost of $35 to spray the outside. This is to get rid of adult mosquitoes.
JO: And so do you think these programmes will be enough to prevent an outbreak of these diseases?
CA: Yes because most of the virus that causes these mosquito-borne disease has to be imported from somewhere. You see we are sitting in the middle of the Pacific, where the Cook Islands is surrounded by countries, like American Samoa, Samoa, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, they have this mosquito-borne disease on their islands since the beginning of this year. But because we have preventative and control measures at our port of entry, or even our media campaign, or our actual larvicide programme, cleaning campaign, so we are hoping nobody will escape through the roots here.