dengue outbreak and of mosquitoes

aedes, the mosquito.
(taken from astrazeneca)

it won’t be friendly when it carries the dengue virus. one bite and you will experience the symptons of dengue and if no cure is seek quick enough, it would proof lethal, leading to death.

well, today’s star latest news (at time of writing) tells us that our gomen warns of dengue outbreak! in our country… so be alert! be careful! be tidy! that’s right, you do not want to be so kind to offer a shelter for the aedes to breed in your house, do you – make sure there are no empty containers left in the open which will collect water or old tyres left in the open, where water can seep in and become a comfortable home for the aedes larvae.

our health minister chua soi lek (i’m taking after politics101, not to mention tittles of ministers), a dengue outbreak is imminent. he fear that the number of cases and death might be higher than last year. so far there had been 730 cases and 70 deaths from the beginning of the year. the hardest hit seemed to be the big cities like KL, selangor and penang.

so far i see the gomen’s action is to carry out fogging in dengue prone areas. apart from that,, what other actions ought to be taken?

talking about fogging, a few times fogging was done at our apartment. twice we were not informed of the fogging to be done. we got a shocked when we heard the fogging machine noisy noise which warned us to get out of the house quick. once i was in the shower halfway when the fogging men came and i had no way/time to get out from the shower, therefore i stay put in the bathroom when the fogging was done. my mum laughed at me saying i was the biggest aedes mosquito then. lol.
(photo on right taken from usj subang jaya)

related links: penang on dengue alert!
penang set to close school in dengue outbreak areas.
health authorities ignored us, says mum of dengue victim.

alert! personal rants ALL on mosquitoes when you click on ‘more’. if you are not interested in grandma stories, do not continue reading.

to continue reading, please click on ‘more’ below.

as i am now staying at the highest storey (5th floor) of the apartment, we hardly have mossies (short for mosquitoes) as our visitors. long long ago though, when i was a child, staying in the kampung area of tanjung tokong, lots of mossies used to disturb us everyday. so we had to use mosquito coil… which people said the smoke from the coil is a health hazard. switching to electric mossies repellent is safer then. oh long ago we also slept in a bed with mossies netting… a nice pink one. wow! come to think of it now… it’s so syok… it was like the olden days chinese wedding bed with a curtain hanging over the bed.

you know, despite the mosquito netting, sometimes these mossies were crafty lots, somehow or other, they managed to make their way in… perhaps via the opening which was not closed properly. then if that happened, wow! the mossies would be having a great feast since we (my sister and i) were sleeping tight! well, ok, we were not sleeping dead ok but just sleeping tight, which means to say sometimes we would feel the mossies bite on us, which made us can’t get to sleep. one of the method i try to avoid the mossies then was to use the blanket to cover myself from head to toe! however, that is possible only if it was not a hot day. so what i usually do when the stupid damn mossie disturbed my beauty sleep was to get up and kill it!! but i had to hunt for it… looking at the nooks and corners, the top, of the nettings, or at pillows, blankets.

now that i think of it, it was quite a funny scene. in the middle of the night, suddenly i had to wake up, switch on the light, then toddle round the bed searching for mossie. when i spy it… piak!! kill the bugger!! ahhh…! but it escape. so i had to continue hunting for it… spy it, piak!! damn! it escape again. and of course this will disturb my sister who was my sleeping companion. you would be disturbed i’m sure if suddenly in the middle of the night, the light was turned on full and you heard noises that goes piak! piak! but of course if i kill mossie i would do a favour to my sister too since i was not the only one on the bed with ‘food’ for mossie.

of course sometimes it would be the other way round – my sister who woke up to become the killer on loose in the middle of the night… and me the one who was disturbed!

well this happened a very long time ago when i was a child… and also during school days time. i’m glad that now living on the 5th storey we hardly encounter mossies.

mossies are easy to kill actually especially if it landed on your arm or legs… just a piak! piak! (slap) and it turn into a pulp. heh. do you know once i had a friend who refused to slap dead a mossie when one landed on him to feast on him. he will just shoo the mossie away. well i don’t mind doing that too but fact is if it is not dead, it will return so not wanting to indulge mossie with a second helping feast of me, i’d rather kill it.