Mexico City. The Mexican Red Cross (CRM) launched the Goodbye Mosquito campaign, the purpose of which is to generate a culture of prevention and education in communities so that they know how to protect themselves from the spread of the virus and eliminate sources of infection, in response to the large increase in dengue cases in this period compared to the same period last year. The institution indicated, based on data from the Ministry of Health, that up to epidemiological week 31, 30,951 cases were registered in the country, which represents an increase of almost 300 percent.
The program, coordinated by SC Johnson and the Argentine organization Edupas, will start in the states of Oaxaca, Tabasco, Chiapas, the State of Mexico and Guerrero, as they are considered the most vulnerable, but will also reach other entities, including Sonora and Chihuahua, due to the presence of cases in practically the entire republic.
José Antonio Monroy, general director of CRM, reported that the collaboration in the campaign not only includes the traditional volunteers of the organization, but also all its branches, including the youth branch. He highlighted the base of 40 thousand volunteers who will work directly in it, “not only those dedicated to risk control, but also our paramedics.”
For his part, Luis Manuel Hernández, vice president of SCJohnson, explained that the increase in cases caused by the Aedes aegypti mosquito is due to radical climate changes, since “we were coming from an extreme drought where we had no water and the population had to store it,” but he stated that this need must be added to “education to take measures to prevent these impacts,” derived from the generation of breeding sites. He also added that this rainy season is more aggressive than in the past and an active season is expected at the hurricane level.
Small mosquito, big problems
Carlos Frener Figueroa, president of CRM, said that the mosquito vector is a “small animal that creates enormous problems” through dengue, chikungunya and zika diseases.
He stressed that there are 500 delegations in the country, “there is hardly a point in the republic that is not close to a Red Cross delegation or base, a place where our volunteers can go to bring a message of prevention, health, and encouragement.”
He also said that “we have to go to the mountains, to the fields, to the fishing areas, to the places where this insect normally reproduces and causes a lot of damage, and sometimes these people do not even get to the health aid.”
Community resilience
The CRM general director stated that the institution understands the need to strengthen community capacities. A strong community “must necessarily contain factors where populations understand and know their risks and know how to recover after an impact,” not only climate emergencies, but also in health issues.
He stressed that the CRM went from being reactive to preventive, “we have realized that we save more lives by working previously with our communities, educating and working in two ways, since the residents also “teach us a lot about the problems they experience and we learn to know how to collaborate with them.”
(With information from Alexia Villaseñor)
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– 2024-08-23 15:58:50
