Acting Deputy Chief Environmental Officer, Austin Greaves said: “There is an increased demand for the vector control resources to reduce what we call the endemicity of dengue fever … Dengue is now a standard on our landscape, so that annually we can expect dengue cases to occur in our country. By cooperating with the officers as they execute their mandate the public is actually seeking to reduce significantly the problem associated with dengue fever and of course, with leptospirosis also,” he said.

He added that they were also enhancing their surveillance of tyres coming into the island in an attempt to ensure that no vectors were being imported as well.

“Vector control officers have to visit particularly the ports of entry, inspect those tyres that are brought in for our vehicles to make sure that we are not importing cases or importing the dreaded mosquito vector, the aedes aegypti mosquito.”

The upsurge in underground tanks, he added was another area that was demanding the attention of officers to monitor and inspect for the dreaded mosquito.

He told Barbados TODAY that the inspections were joint efforts, and while they could definitely use more staff, at present they were able to do the job with those allotted.

“We have over 200 officers in all in Barbados, but of course not all are deployed to the public domain because some work in specialised areas. We can always do with more staff, but the way we are dealing with it, we are able to handle the situation at present.”

The deputy chief noted that the demand was one of the reasons they were intent on pressing on with their pledge to train 10,000 to 20,000 persons in the public about vectors, so as to have a better educated population that could handle some of the challenges being experienced.

“There are so many complaints that come into the various health departments and of course, particularly to the Vector Control Unit that sometimes they become overwhelming and the response cannot be as quick always as we would like them to be, because we have to attend to them and seek to bring them to a resolution.

“We urge you to keep making your calls, our officers are on the ball, but in many instances because of the overwhelming number of complaints coming in you are not going to be services as quickly as you would like but we will do everything to ensure that your complaints are attended to,” said Greaves.

He added that the unit’s officers had numerous jobs, including reducing the mortality as a result of vector diseases, reducing the economic loss incurred from such vectors, education awareness among other duties. (Barbados Today)