The Kaohsiung City Government will launch a campaign to raise awareness among city residents of how dengue fever is related to environmental conditions in the hope of combating the disease.
The city government decided to strengthen education on dengue fever prevention after an opinion poll it conducted found that half of the city’s residents were not aware of the Breteau index, a measure of dengue fever-transmitting mosquito prevalence.
The Breteau index, defined as the number of positive water containers for mosquito larvae per 100 randomly sampled households, is a relatively sensitive indicator of transmission, said Hsiao Yu-cheng (蕭裕正), director of the city government’s Department of Environmental Protection.
An index level of three means residents should be warned that their community has too many positive water containers that could serve as hotbeds where infected mosquitoes are likely to breed, Hsiao said.
The WHO definition states that an index level of five means that the area’s risk of transmission is dangerously high, he said.
The poll found that 51 percent of Kaohsiung residents were satisfied with the outdoor insecticide spraying conducted by the city’s environmental protection department, while 43 percent of respondents said the work was “OK” and 3.9 percent were dissatisfied with the spraying effort.
Dengue fever is transmitted to humans by infected Asian tiger mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus), which breed mainly in stagnant water.
Hsiao urged Kaohsiung City residents to step up efforts to clean up environmental black spots and to get rid of standing water in containers such as flower pots, buckets and discarded tires.
He also reminded those who develop early symptoms of dengue fever, such a raised temperature, joint pain and skin rash, to seek medical treatment immediately.
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