Jury Chai :For the first time the Health Department is fumigating mosquito ridden houses in Mudon Town, Mon State.
Residents, who want their houses’ fumigated, have to pay and register their addresses with the Mudon Health Department. According to residents, the standard price for fumigation is 100,000 kyat; households that want additional spraying reported paying close to 200,000 kyat.
“I can only afford to have my house sprayed, I can’t pay for the whole quarter,” said a Mudon resident, who had her house fumigated. “I had to pay the Health Department about 100,000 kyat, and they sprayed around my house, but they didn’t spray any of the other houses.” Mudon Town is divided into eight quarters and estimated to have 15,000 households.
According to IMNA field reporters, residents that can afford to have their houses fumigated are doing so because of the growing number of Malaria and Dengue Hemorrhagic fever cases in Mudon town. These diseases are spread by Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus mosquitoes that tend to feed during the day time. For many Mudon residents however, fumigation is not affordable.
“I can’t spend 100,000 kyat, I don’t want [them] to spray mosquito repellent in my home because I have no money,” said a resident who could not afford to have her house fumigated. “Many houses in Mudon town have paid for the fumigation. Homes that can’t pay, can’t get the mosquito repellent spray.”
The Mudon Health Department started fumigating houses in June, around the same time as the Dengue Hemorrhagic fever outbreak peaked. As mentioned in previous IMNA articles, hospitals in Mon State have been unable to properly address and contain the outbreak.
The Mudon resident added, “Every rainy season someone from the Mudon Health Department checks every house in every quarter [for mosquitoes], but this year they did not come and check.”
In past years, the Health Department staff checked every house in Mon State for mosquito larvas in free standing bodies of water and other residential areas. This year the Health Department substituted checking households with fumigation, however since the fumigation is limited to prepaid individual households, villagers are concerned the mosquito infestation and disease outbreak are unlikely to be contained.
