BVI ought to consider using same mosquito control technique as USVI — Chief Med Officer
While echoing sentiments that the US Virgin Islands’ proposed Sterile Insect Technique for mosquito control is safe, Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, Dr Irad Potter, has gone further to say the method is something that might work for the BVI as well.
The technique would involve releasing sterile, non-biting male mosquitos into the BVI.
“It is something that ought to be considered because you remember that of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito [breed] — the females bite you and not the males. And if it’s selectively killing off the ones that are carrying the disease, that’s a good thing. So, it is something to explore,” Dr Irad Potter told BVI News in a recent interview.
“If you find a technique that is going to selectively kill the mosquito that is carrying the bad diseases, that is something to be interested in,” the Chief Medical Officer added.
No moves without public input, go-ahead from gov’t
Dr Potter, however, made it clear that no such move would be made in the territory without public consultation as well as approval from government.
He said: “We have not decided to use any of that kind of technology as yet and we won’t do it without having some kind of communication with our people. We would try to have an educational discussion with them regarding what it is and those kinds of things.”
Dr Potter also alluded to the fact that the Sterile Insect Technique, which uses the bacterium Wolbachia to reduce the transmission of mosquito-borne viruses, is used by the World Mosquito Programme in numerous countries.
He said that plenty of literature that supports the use of the method is available on credible from credible groups such as the World Health Organisation and the Centre for Disease Control in the United States.
Earlier this week, Chief Environmental Health Officer Lionel Michael stated that the method which is projected to be rolled out in St Croix, USVI by 2020, seems to have a high degree of safety.
He said mosquitoes have been around for centuries and fully eradicating them is impossible. Michael said he, therefore, believes the best thing that can be done is to control the mosquitoes through suppressing the disease using various methods or techniques.
While he rates the Sterile Insect Technique as safe and theoretically effective, Michael said he supports more traditional vector control methods.
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Great idea, already tested and determined safe.
Please share the data of testing and its presumed safety with the concerned people of the territory.
The minister will prefer giving each of us a spray can of off just like how he give out the masks—LOL
Yup!
with all kinds of mutations…maybe a new can of worms. Everything is safe and tested until a problem happens
These w people plan to depopulate b people so if any new dieses break out around here people remember this technique program and deal with our sell out leaders accordenly.
The audacity of the w man! Who gave him that right?
Yet, as you read, he is murdering children and adults across Africa, and where he is not murdering them, he is making potential motheres barren.
The majrity of African and Latin American countries have been and remain a target of the w man biological warfare against the b man.
What the hell can he the w man say we te b man have done to him to warrant such evil and devilish attacks?
That is the work of a devil. And yet, they do not like to read of such truths.
Let the B.V.I. be the world leader in mosquito protection. Plenty of tourist dollars there.
What if they release the wrong batch by mistake.
Everyone will be walking around with 3 eyes and grow a extra head. LOL.
Can the Chief Med Officer state unnequivocally through scientific facts and proof of verification to the people of this territory, and provide proof that no foul science is associated with those mosquitos they are planning to relaease upon us.
There are sufficient concerned voices out there who need to know that their life and biological functions will not be put in jeoprady.
Can the chief medical officer give proof that the people of the BVI are not backward thinking uneducated loop jobs .
When purchase said mosquitoes,suppose they put in the ones that killing people in the states with that triple E
I don’t think we need to be trusting anything like this, they already poison the food that is being imported why not take it a step further, Mr. Minister, please think wisely about this decision.