DO DAY AGAINST DENGUE

Before Dengue has reached epidemic levels in Iloilo Province, Governor Arthur Defensor, Sr. has launched another Do Day Against Dengue and enlisted all sectors of society so that we may be able to contain the disease. The program which shall be led by the municipal governments, calls for a regular search and destroy operations on the possible breeding places of the Aedes Egyptii. The catholic church meanwhile signified its cooperation by agreeing to ring church bells province-wide at the designated time to create awareness and initiate the activities.

Let this Do Day be a comprehensive drive against the enemy, the virus and its vector, the Aedes Egypti mosquito. What we will search and destroy are the breeding areas of the mosquitoes and larvae which in this case are pools or even droplets of clean water. Let us also give the enemy a closer scrutiny, its life cycle, and, its niche in the ecosystem.

Information says that the Dengue virus becomes active and is carried by the said mosquito after seven days from the time it had bitten an infected person. Eggs of the mosquito is produced in about two days after mating. It is the female Aedes which bites because it needs the protein from the blood to develop the larva. The larva hatches in about 2 days more and will pupate in about 4 days. A set of male and female may lay up to 900 eggs.

Like any organism in the ecosystem, mosquitoes are also a part of the whole food chain. While the female feeds on animals (which include humans), the male feed on digestible plants, especially fruits. And like other animals, they too have their own predators. The adult are food for larger insects like spiders, dragonflies, frogs, toads and bats. The larva are fed on by fishes especially small ones like gobies, killi and guppies.

Any species multiply when food is available and when predators are absent. Mosquitoes react the same way. When the larvae in stagnant water are left to survive until the pupa stage and no other species feed on them during this period, the whole species multiply exponentially. So a pair of Aedes will become hundreds of Dengue-carrying horde in just a few days if left uncontrolled, simply because we thought that we humans have the burden to control their population. We seem to have forgotten that we are just a cog in the whole ecosystem. That for us to survive, the whole environment we live in should be self-sustaining and dynamic.

We also thought in the that the solution to the Dengue epidemic is simplistic or can be reduced to the basic equation where we alone are the key actors. We seem to have forgotten to enlist nature into our comprehensive fight against the dreaded disease. We forgot that for us to win over the horde of mosquitos that seem to have defeated us, we should have to mobilize our allies which are not of the human kind.

Maybe we should start evaluating our whole environment. Where have we gone wrong? In the process of striving for the so-called progress and development, haven't we destroyed our ecosystem? Look at how frogs, toads, lizards, swallows, sparrows and bats disappeared. For many, toads are just pesky jumping creatures. Bullfrogs are tasty beer partners. Bats are feared creatures because of the dracula fiction. They are also tasty food to some. So we have put it upon ourselves to exterminate them all.

Dragonflies are a tragic collateral damage in our effort to produce more food. A dragonfly kills about 30-50 mosquitoes daily. They die off because they have ingested poisoned insects or were directly hit by the chemical sprays when they foray for food.

A spider web can catch a substantial number of insects including mosquitoes everyday. Where insect population are many, the density of spider population explode exponentially too. But spiders too have become a hot commodity. What used to be a child's game has become a million peso gambling pastime. Thousands of spiders are gathered daily from May to September for spider fighting where aficionados bet thousands of pesos per fight. Incidentally, the spider season coincides with the period where Aedes Egypti is most prevalent.

So, have we noticed that swallows, bats and other small birds seem to have disappeared in the last 30 years or so? Have we asked ourselves why? Maybe it's the chemicals that we use to control the insect pests which incidentally are the main sources of food for these birds and bats. Maybe we have grossly destroyed their habitats in search for more land to grow crops or cleared the forest for timber and later on for hillside farming. Whatever reason we have, the bottom line is that in the name of progress, we have destroyed other species which could have helped us control these mosquitoes.

Several months ago when I first wrote a similar piece, I received feedback that some local Sanggunians have made resolutions banning the gathering of spiders for whatever purpose. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources likewise tightened its watch over these illegal activities. Good! But we should go one step further: there should be a wider program where even the imprudent use of agricultural chemicals should be monitored and sanctioned so that we can somehow reduce the damage done to mosquito predators. Also, we should encourage environment regeneration and farm integration so that we transcend from the mono-culture or mono-crop system which is doing more harm than good.