By Christopher Thomas

Copyright jamaica-gleaner

WESTERN BUREAU:

The St James Health Services is reporting that 10 per cent of the parish’s 279 schools are not in full compliance as it relates to maintaining proper public health standards, based on a vector control inspection done in August.

Sherika Lewis, the acting chief public health inspector for St James, told last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation that 252 schools are meeting the required public health standards, while 27 are falling short.

“For the month of August, we have inspected a total of 60,235 premises, of which 1,500 were found to be positive for mosquito breeding, so our current Aedes index [used to gauge the local mosquito population] is at 9.8 per cent. We focused mainly on our schools for the back-to-school period, and 30 schools were visited and were treated for mosquito breeding,” said Lewis.

“Our schools continued to be doing well, and at this point we have 90 per cent of our schools that are maintaining general public health standards,” said Lewis. “School administrators and parents are being encouraged, now that school has been reopened, that children with respiratory symptoms should stay home and seek medical attention, so as not to spread germs to the rest of the school population.”

Speaking specifically on mosquito breeding awareness in St James, Lewis said the St James Health Services has been proactive in its education campaign among residents to control the potential spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

“We continue to monitor our high-risk communities, of which 30 were visited during August, and we continue to focus on those areas because of the high Aedes index. We also celebrated World Mosquito Day on August 19, and we were celebrating our gains in identifying a particular vector [source] of malaria, the Anopheles mosquito, which we very well have in our parish,” said Lewis.

“Community members were treated to a wonderful session by the public health inspectors and our vector control team. Approximately 285 persons were reached on August 19, and the town centres of the communities we went to were Adelphi, Cambridge and Granville. We have also been doing surveillance and treatment of our drains and our river margins,” said Lewis.

St James’ Aedes index has increased slightly over the past two months, with the current 9.8 per cent index being higher than June (8.8 per cent) and July (9.2 per cent).

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com