A simple device that would surely kill mosquitoes and help solve the dengue problem in Laoag City was distributed recently by the City Government to the public.
The device, the Ovicidal-Larvicial Mosquito Trap, or OL Trap was distributed by Mayor Michael Farinas through the City Health Office and General Services Office to all 80 barangays in the city. This was in time with the 47th Charter Day celebration of the city.
Administrative Officer Josefina Mata said 20,000 pieces of the OL Trap were given to the barangay captains.
“There were different allocations for the barangays. It is up to the captains to distribute the device to the people in their areas,” Mata said.
Barangay San Lorenzo got the biggest allocation with 800 OL Traps; followed by Barangay San Matias, 644; and Barangay Calayab, 519.
Mayor Farinas is intensifying the local government’s anti-dengue campaign especially now that the rainy season has set in.
A Department of Health dengue surveillance report showed that 18 dengue cases were recorded in the city for the period January to March this year, 2012.
In August of last year, Laoag City was placed under a state of calamity due to the spread of dengue virus.
The OL Trap was developed by the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology following several laboratory tests.
Mata said the device they distributed is composed of an ordinary black or dark-colored plastic container or tumbler, a piece of wood or lawanit that resembles an ice cream bar stick and 4 sachets of pellets.
The pellets are mixed with about 250ml of water. The stick, drenched with the solution, is placed upright in the container with one end deep in the solution to continuously sip it. The pellets, containing an attractant, attract the Aedes aegypti mosquito to lay its eggs into the rough part of the solution-saturated strip. The solution then kills the eggs and larvae. The public may wipe away the eggs and larvae from the strip and use again the strip.
“If the pellets are consumed, the public can buy a sachet at the Department of Science and Technology,” Mata said.
Experiments made by the DOST showed a high efficiency of the OL Trap solution with a 70% attraction rate and 100% mortality rate. A female mosquito can lay as many as 400 eggs four times in its life, 80% of which will turn out to be female. But through the OL Trap, the next generation of mosquitoes in an area will be wiped out, and the deadly dengue virus with it.
The OL Trap may last up to two months.
Aside from the OL Trap, the City Government is planning to distribute the Rice Husk Mousticide, another new innovative tool for the safe and effective control of the mosquito larvae. (Carlo P. Canares/PIA Ilocos Norte)
