BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) does not have any chemicals to destroy mosquito larva areas where breeding has started, a situation which will pose serious health problems during the rainy season.
Report by Staff Reporter
According to the latest council minutes, mosquito larva has been encountered in streams that had been cleared in the city.
“There has been ongoing clearing of streams in the city and breeding of the culex mosquito has been encountered,” BCC said.
“Nothing was being done to kill mosquito larva since — up to now, no chemical had been purchased for the purpose.”
The report stated that lack of chemicals would pose a serious problem, especially during the rainy season.
Council minutes showed that the mosquito control section was facing manpower shortages and this was seriously affecting operations, as only one team was available, instead of the usual three to cover the entire city.
Councillor James Sithole said residents in his ward had complained over the presence of mosquitoes in their area.
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“Mosquitoes are a problem in my ward and I suggest that priority should be given to the purchase of insecticides,” he said.
In response, town clerk Middleton Nyoni said the department concerned processed a requisition so that the finance department “could purchase chemicals, as appropriate, depending on availability of funds”.
Meanwhile, the local authority said it had no chemicals for rodent control.
“Although rodent control had been done traditionally around this time along the rodent belt, this activity had so far not been carried out this year due to non-availability of rodent control chemicals,” council said.
“This exercise was very important if council was to protect the residents from outbreaks of rodent plague.”
