Aedes Aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae): Notes and Challenges for its Control in Cuba
- 1. Hospital General Docente Enrique Cabrera, La Habana, Cuba
- 2. María del Carmen Marquetti Fernández, Department Vector Control, Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kourí, La Habana, Cuba
CITATION
Marquetti AB, Fernández MM (2024) Aedes Aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae): Notes and Challenges for its Control in Cuba. Clin Res Infect Dis 8(2): 1068.
SUMMARY
In 1981, Cuba suffered the most serious outbreak of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever recorded in the region of the Americas, where 43 million dollars were used at the initial direct cost for the eradication of Ae. aegypti. As a result of the epidemic, the National Campaign for to eradicated Ae. aegypti was created. This campaign is currently known as the national control program for Ae. aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The surveillance and control of these two main arbovirus vectors constitute its main activities. This program has three fundamental aspects: First, it has a universal character, that is, 100% of the homes and premises are sampled, including work, educational and tourist centers, among others; second, it is executed throughout the year and third, the inspection cycles vary between 7 and 21 days depending on the presence or not of arbovirus cases in the community [1].
Vector surveillance is fundamentally based on the values obtained from the House Index, Breteau Index and Container Index [2]. These indices, as known, have limitations that must be taken into account when making decisions, such as:
- Those indexes do not provide information on sites that are not homes or premises, e.g.: barren lots, road ditches, accumulated water, etc [3-8].
- There is scientific controversy about its relationship with adult density
- When they are averaged for a city or a country, their meaning completely changes and generally lower values are reported than those that really exist.
It is important to highlight that as part of the surveillance, resistance to the insecticides used by the program is also monitored [9,10]. Despite everything previously expressed, the program established in Cuba has provided evidence and results for more than 40 years that have allowed us to control Ae. aegypti populations and the same time arbovirus cases such as dengue
in the country. Among the results that surveillance has given us since 1982 to the present is to verify that Ae. aegypti continues to breed in the same breeding sites, regardless of the control exerted with the organophosphate temephos on its populations since 1981 until to the current days [11-15]. It is confirmed in a study carried out in 2019 that the mosquito’s most productive reservoirs are those for water storage and destructible artificial containers (cans, disposable plastic bottles, etc.) and non- destructible containers (animal waterers, refrigerator drawers, vases, religious deposits with water, etc.) These results lead us to conclude that it has not suffered behavioral changes in the choice of its breeding sites [16-18].
The mosquito maintains its ecological plasticity, that is, its ability to use a wide range of deposits to lay its eggs since the environment and the community provide them. On the contrary, if an increase in the positivity of containers with Ae.aegypti is evident inside the houses in recent years (2010-2023), which did not happen in the decade of 80 and 90 of the past century, where it predominated in the patios of homes. Another element to consider is the increase in the presence of mosquitoes in religious deposits, refrigerator drawers, vases and small containers to store water in kitchens that lack lids (from 50% to 61.2%) during 2019 compared to a study carried out in 2006 [19-21].
These exposed results are accompanied by factors that favor it such as:
- Increase in urbanization, the number of new homes and premises increases dynamically each year without greatly modifying the frequency of water supply and with this: this aspect causes an increase in human activities in the urban ecosystem related to water storage. This storage is evident: In daily human activities; in the religious customs in the population (religious deposits of different modalities and vases); in the supply of water to pets and livestock [21].
- Increase of utensils of all kinds in the yards of homes (car scrap, tires, scrap household appliances, paint buckets, etc. that are not normally discarded in the country in normal garbage collection [22].
- Active participation of the population is not achieved to avoid vector breeding sites, which is visible every year where we maintain high rates of Ae. aegypti and cases of dengue, adding in recent years also cases of CHIKV and ZIKV [23].
This Overview Leads us in the Country to the Need to Look for Solutions Where the Following Challenges Prevail
- Incorporate comprehensive approach studies in vector management, prioritizing the environmental variable, since interventions related to the safe supply and storage of water, sanitation, hygiene, urban health and comprehensive solid waste management are essential to reduce vector breeding sites and prevent arboviruses.
- Identify and integrate environmental health surveillance indicators into entomological and epidemiological surveillance, to identify risks associated with sanitary and environmental conditions related to vector-transmitted diseases [24-26].
- Over the years of the program, the areas of high risk of mosquito infestation are known, which makes it possible to assess the stratification of entomological risks in surveillance and to stop sampling 100% of the universe of localities with the expense involved.
- To avoid homogeneity of control actions in the face of different risk situations even if the program is in all country [27].
- To find motivated and recognized qualified personnel in the field of entomology and vector control.
- To articulate the recycling movement with the vector program at the municipal level for the collection of all metallic, plastic and other scrap metal that is stored in yards and that is not disposed of in the common garbage, becoming mosquito breeding sites in rainy season [28].
- To create educational materials that integrate environment and vector management, to expand the scope of the information that reaches the population and guarantees that they identify with the problem in order to influence behavior since this is considered mediated by the knowledge, but... It is not enough for change to occur.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the activities that cover the biology and control of aspects of Ae. aegypti surveillance have allowed the monitoring and entomological characterization of the different situations related to the transmission of DENV, CHIKV and ZIKV, arboviruses that have circulated in our country in In recent years, the certification of cessation of high entomological risk given by high infestations of this vector in certain areas and the alerts to the national health system for more than 40 years.
Furthermore, at times of the COVID-19 pandemic, a sampling strategy could be implemented that contributed to obtaining the indicators used in the surveillance of Ae. aegypti in a rapid and reliable manner, which favored the integrated surveillance approach for the control of the pandemic and arbovirus vectors, fulfilling the call of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) at a time when the health systems of the region of the Americas were facing a serious epidemiological situation.
However, several fundamental aspects must be discussed, highlighting the use of entomological stratification, frequency of review, planning of control actions, incorporating indicators in surveillance related to environmental hygiene, among others proposed in this article.
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