152 Health Problems from Mosquitoes
Stopping dengue by stopping mosquitoes
Over the past 25 years, people in Managua, Nicaragua have been increasingly
getting sick with dengue fever. Because the mosquito that spreads dengue lives
in water in and around homes, dengue spreads widely when more people move
into tropical cities without safe water storage and wastewater drainage.
People in Managua worked with scientists, NGOs, and the Ministry of
Health to reduce and prevent dengue in 10 neighborhoods. The first thing
they did was to collect ‘evidence’ of the spread of dengue. Children collected
samples of water with mosquitoes in different stages of growth, scientists
tested children’s saliva to see how many had been bitten by dengue-infected
mosquitoes, and community members visited people’s homes to ask them what
they knew and thought about dengue.
They used neighborhood
meetings, posters, and
sociodramas to share what
they learned about dengue.
Children played games
where they smashed hollow
dengue mosquito puppets,
scattering the candy hidden
inside. Young people,
including gang members,
wrote and performed
popular-style songs about
preventing dengue.
Each neighborhood
developed its own mosquito
control program. Because
they knew that mosquitoes
breed in discarded tires,
one group decided to collect
old tires, fill them with
soil, and use them to make
stairways up steep paths.
That got rid of mosquito
breeding sites and made it
easier to get up and down
the hillside. Other tires were
used as planters.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012