Dengue Mosquito Fogging is Bad

Jakartans use “fogger” chemical sprays to fight dengue-transmitting Aedes mosquitoes.

Photo (C) Hermitianta P. Putra

Whatever was meant to target the mosquitoes made cockroaches jumped into our swimming pool and drown themselves, and made “normal” ants frantically run in circles. This suggests that whatever they use for fogging is a generalist poison that screws up all insect brains and likely affects larger things as well. That is bad for controlling dengue, because many small animals compete with the mosquitos for food and reproductive space, or may even eat them (eg: larvae from other insects, or chick-chacks).

Probably for these reasons, fogging for dengue is not advised:

• The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Indonesia Newsletter (2008) states “Fogging has been proven over 50 years of use to have no practical effect on dengue transmission”

• A study in the Singapore Medical Journal (2005) concluded that “usual chemical fogging in natural environment was ineffective in breaking the reproductive lifecycle by eliminating gravid female _Aedes mosquitoes_”

• The Philippino government’s Department of Health advises against fogging. [here] and [here].

So please stop fogging!

The best approach is to eliminate all possible breeding sites: getting rid of even small amounts of stagnant water (in containers, trash, leaves, flower pot dishes….)

December 1, 2010

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