"Come next year, the Ministry of Health and Wellness will be embarking on a pilot for the Sterilised Insect Technique as part of efforts to minimise mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue.

Portfolio Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says the initiative will be spearheaded by the Mosquito Control Research Unit, which has been established in conjunction with the University of the West Indies (UWI).

The technique is an environmentally-friendly pest control method involving mass-rearing and sterilisation, via radiation, of target pests such as the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

Tufton explained that the process also involves systematic area-wide release of the sterile males by air, over defined areas, resulting in no fertilisation when they mate with wild females, thereby leading to a decline in the mosquito population.

He was speaking at a Pan American Health Organization PAHO workshop at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on Monday.

Tufton said Jamaica has had a dengue threshold that has been classified as an outbreak for the better part of 2019, noting that this is “not that normal”.

He contended that Jamaica, like the rest of the Caribbean, must figure out how to deal with the prevalence of mosquitoes and their increasingly aggressive nature."

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