GHMC entomology wing geared up to combat mosquito menace

Hyderabad: The Entomology Wing of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation have made a plan to prevent dengue and malaria and stop the menace of mosquitoes in the city.

In GHMC, there will be a total of 2,412 entomology workers for anti-larval operations, 1919 of them will be entomology workers, 342 for fogging operations, 114 that will function as special manpower, 30 Assistant Entomologists, and six entomologists. There will be a total of 125 units. “Each unit consists of 19 members covering above one lakh houses daily,” said the official.

Covering both COVID-19 and mosquito control activities in every locality and balancing as per cases, the recording of COVID-19 and dengue malaria especially for (ALO) Operations that 817 knapsack sprayers are using. In addition to this, 1000 power sprayers, 64 vehicle-mounted fogging machines and 305 pmf fogging machines.

Additional manpower 

Recently we allotted extra manpower to all zones. Each zone’s teams, for Khairtabad extra six teams with total 24 persons, Furthermore, 104 additional manpower are given. It is in this process, all larvicides and adulticides stock is there in addition to this another one-year larvicides and adulticides. The equipment tender process within a short time will be in extra stock.

Innovative programmes

In every division, we are conducting a 10-minute programme with local community leaders on Sundays at 10 am via an IEC campaign. In every area and dengue prone area we put a larva sticker and no larva green sticker. This we are doing in vulnerable areas and dengue malaria-prone areas. A well-defined pinpointed programme with a proper schedule to cover each and every household, spraying temephos, creating awareness and emptying containers with unused water in each household. Pyrethrum spraying will be done in the neighbouring 30 to 40 houses where positive cases (dengue Chikungunya malaria) are reported.

Dropping of oil balls in dirty water

  • There will be a release of Gambusia fish in all baby ponds and fresh stagnated water.
  • Drones will be used for anti-larval operations.
  • Three drones were operational for spraying of pyrosine oils in lakes from December 2019 to March 2020.
  • An extension has been given to these three drones in four zones for another from May to July 2020
  • Another 11 drones were called in all zones and they will be used for antilarval operations in the lakes and the Musi river. 

Antilarval activities in Musi

  • Around 21kms of Musi river flowing through GHMC area, creating Mosquito genic conditions.
  • The source starts from Attapur and ends at Uppal creating pools and puddles on both sides in addition to the main stream.
  • A dedicated 3 units with 50 workers headed by 2 assistant entomologists and two senior entomologists are looking after ALO and fogging operations and the additional unit will also be started from June.
  • A special drone is allotted completely to Musi for the 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.