Corporation Increasing Fogging Time
By increasing fogging, the corporation intends to control the mosquitoes problem in Coimbatore. In the wake of complaints that the mosquito menace in the city has not been controlled fully, the Coimbatore Corporation has increased fogging by half-an-hour in the evening. It will be done from 5.45 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. with the help of both auto rickshaw-mounted and cycle-mounted machines. The earlier schedule was 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and 5.45 p.m. to 7 p.m. The Corporation has not increased the timings in the morning to avoid complaints of pollution, especially when people come out for a walk. Anti-mosquito spray mixed in diesel is used in the fogging. And, the diesel spreads only in sunlight. Otherwise, it does not diffuse enough to kill mosquitoes.
“We have extended the timings as per the orders of the Commissioner,” Assistant City Health Officer R. Sumathi said on Friday. At a meeting chaired by Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra, health officials said apart from fogging the use of some species of fish to kill mosquito larvae, personal protection methods such as nets helped people avoid contracting diseases caused by virus spread by mosquitoes. Such alternatives were being propagated in African countries where the incidence of these diseases was high.
Dr. Sumathi said the city did not have mosquitoes that carried the parasite that caused malaria or filariasis. The city had only the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carried the virus that caused dengue and chikungunya. The fogging and other measures being carried out now were aimed at killing these mosquitoes and eliminating breeding space.
