No cause for alarm over deadly mosquito breed

According to Dr. Nana Yaw Peprah, the Deputy Program Manager of NMEP, should the public practice good hygiene and adhere to all preventive controls, there will be no major effect on the situation. 

“Yes, we should be alarmed because it is a stubborn mosquito that will increase the mosquito population in the country which means an increased risk of malaria. But we only have to ensure that we do more environmental management,” he advised.

Dr. Peprah said the measures were the same as the malaria control intervention measures that had been in place in the country over the years.

Those, he said, included ensuring that they did not create mosquito breeding sites in and around their households, choked gutters should be cleared and the environment should be kept clean and also the use of repellants and larvicides which involved spraying some communities with larvicides that killed all the types of mosquito parasites present in the environment.

He advised that persons should get tested and early treatment should one experience signs and symptoms of malaria to avoid putting other members at risk. 

The Ghana Health Service (GHS), through its surveillance system, said it had detected the presence of a new breed of mosquito that transmits malaria, Anopheles stephensi, in Tuba and Dansoman.

Concerning malaria, there are four types of mosquitoes the country is distressed with, which he explained as Anopheles gambiae, Anopheles arabiensis, Anopheles melas, and Anopheles funestus.

“So if you have a mosquito which is as rough as the Anopheles, which can breed in dirty waters and also survive high conditions and Anopheles stephensi also becomes part of that mosquito population, it will increase the population”.

“And wherever there is an increase in the mosquito population, there is a risk of an increase in malaria prevalence because it is the mosquitoes that pick the parasite from one person and transmits to another,” he explained.

“If we can do these, we can deal with the parasites. If at the individual level, we all treat mosquito parasites well, even if a mosquito bites us, it is not going to transmit any parasite from anyone to the other,” the Deputy Program Manager explained.

It is the first time the country has detected the mosquito breed which, according to Dr. Peprah, is usually not in West Africa but abounds in Asian countries.