mosquito trap.
This will be my third beat since I started at DOST as writer. This topic is found interesting not just because it is a product of research from DOST but because OVI mosquito trap is one of the top of the line solution of the government to decrease the population of mosquito that causes dengue fever in the country.
The Philippines was bombarded by alarming dengue incidence last year that almost bring the country in a state of national calamity. “Almost” because though it doesn’t happen it reached the epidemic proportion in several regions leaving hundreds of patients died.
In fact, according to the official publication of DOH Healthbeat’s year-end countdown dengue is the top health issue faced by the Department of Health last year, leaving pressures to the government to look into a solution that might help reduce the occurrence of these disease.
I’m sure were all familiar with this dengue fever, but for the sake of those who don’t know it, dengue fever is sometimes called “breakdown fever” because of the muscle cramping it causes to the patient. Among the symptoms are; severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, red spots or patches on the skin, signs of bleeding, black stools, drowsiness or decrease consciousness, difficulty of breathing and pale or cold clampsy skin.
Dengue is not transmitted from one person to another but it can through the bite of Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito. These mosquitoes are the vectors of this disease that’s why DOH advised the public to search and destroy this insect before it brings death to the family.
One of the strategies that the government is giving emphasis now is the use of OVI mosquito trap or ovicidal larvicidal mosquito trap in every household where mosquito can freely fly looking for the next victim they can bite. OviTrap is consists of a black plastic bottle loaded with ovicides and a lawanit cardboard paddle that can serve as medium where female mosquitoes lay their eggs. According Dr. Lillian de las Llagas, one of the technical experts of the study from UP Manila, the black color of the bottle serves as attractant to female mosquito to lay its eggs in the trap and the ovicide added to the water loaded in the bottle will kill the eggs. Thus, it reduces the population of mosquito in simplest way but effectively.
Ill make an in-dept article about this, when I come back from covering the launching of Ovitrap in Tacloban City, tomorrow morning 18 February 2011.
For more information on OL mosquito trap click HERE
