adminAccording to the latest council report, Bulawayo’s director of health services, Dr Zanele Hwalima, in a report of the health, housing and education committee, directly linked the problem of mosquitoes to frequent sewer bursts in the city.
However, at a media briefing in 2010, Dr Hwalima said Bulawayo did not have the anopheles mosquito that spreads malaria, adding that malaria cases treated in the city were almost always imported from other places.
She said mosquito bites in the city were mainly a nuisance but no malaria was spread through the bites.
It is stated in the report that a massive cash injection is needed by council to attend to the sewer bursts as spraying mosquitoes without solving the sewer problem was a waste of resources.
“The mosquito complaint that has been raised all the time is only but a symptom of the problem caused by council’s failure to ensure sewage does not flow in the city streams. The current dry spell is not conducive to mosquito breeding, in the absence of stagnant pools,” said Dr Hwalima.
She said she had visited the Tshabalala and Nkulumane Police Stations with Councillor Gideon Mangena of Ward 24 and they observed the two stations had burst pipes that were spewing sewage into the streams.
“There was dumped refuse in the stream. The area was overgrown with grass. There was heavy mosquito breeding as evidenced by numerous larvae and pupae in the areas where water was stagnant,” said Dr Hwalima.
Dr Hwalima said council had not been able to buy spraying chemicals despite the fact that requisitions were made in good time.
“We all know that this was not deliberate, but was a consequence of unavailability of cash in our coffers.
“Larviciding in the face of unattended sewer bursts is not cost effective because the chemical would be washed away as soon as a station bursts. This would be just scarce resources poured down a drain,” said Dr Hwalima.
She said another development that compounded the mosquito problem was the failure by council to hire workers for seasonal stream bank clearing.
“The department timeously requested that labourers be engaged for the seasonal stream bank clearing. This has also not been actioned because there is no money. There should be adequate staff for the larviciding and stream bank clearing activities to enable a fortnightly cycle. This is necessary to interrupt the life cycle of a mosquito as it takes 14 days for a hatched egg to finally develop into an adult and breed again,” she said.
Dr Hwalima said the solution to the problem was a massive cash injection.
“We need money to attend to the sewerage system to eliminate the bursts that cause perennial river flows in the city. We have to capitalise the refuse removal service to ensure a weekly schedule. Grass has to be cut to eliminate hiding places for the adult mosquito, streams have to be canalised to allow free flow of rain
water and resources have to be availed timeously,” said Dr Hwalima.
The health services director said: “As a stop-gap measure, residents should avoid sitting outdoors from dusk. They should wear clothes that cover most of the body if evening outdoor activity cannot be avoided.”
Dr Hwalima urged residents to apply mosquito repellants and invest in mosquito nets for every bed in their houses.
She said residents should also have indoor residual spraying done at their houses to kill adult mosquitoes that rest on walls, adding that windows must be closed to reduce the number of mosquitoes flying into rooms.
Council has always maintained that the city’s sewer and water reticulation infrastructure was now old and in urgent need of rehabilitation.
Online Reporter