During the last days in Puerto Escondido, we received a lecture by a public health worker
that dedicates his work on vector-borne disease control. He mentioned that in
the rural areas of Puerto Escondido ticks carrying the chagas disease are
common and represent a disease of poverty. These ticks live in the wild and
feed off of animal and human blood. Many families in rural areas are surrounded
by fields and give ticks a place to hide inside of their homes during the day
and will come out at night to feed. Ticks hide in dark tight places such as
under mattresses, in between furnitures, frames, mirrors, and in roofs made of
palm tree leaves which is very common in Puerto Escondido. These ticks can
carry the Chagas diseases and infect families. If the disease is left
untreated, it can cause sudden death.
Mosquitos are also vectors that
can transmit diseases such as zika and dengue as explained to us by the public
health worker. Mosquito survive in areas with pools of waters, clutter of trash
and in big tires. Many of the homes in the rural area of Puerto Escondido do
not have access to running potable water. Therefore, big containers are
obtained and filled with non-potable water by state workers or are filled up by
the rain. This water is used for washing clothes, bathing, cooking and cleaning. Mosquitos will
use these tubes of water to harvest their larvae, increasing the presence of
mosquitos around the families home.
The following day, we joined
local public health workers in Puerto Escondido in an outreach to rural
communities for vector-disease control. These public health workers travel to
the homes in rural areas every day in hopes of fumigating houses where the
specific ticks that carry the Chagas disease are found at no cost to the
families. Big tubes of water are also inspected for mosquito larvae and
families are provided with tablets to place in the water that will kill and
inhibit the growth of mosquito larvae. These tablets are safe for human use and
are also provided to families at no cost. Our responsibility was to ask the
families permission to inspect their homes and the surrounding areas for ticks
and mosquito larvae. Once granted permission, my team and I inspected every
dark and tight place to see if we can find any ticks. If we do find a tick or
the family has found, killed, or saved a tick, then the tick is collected and
sent to the public health department with the families name. The family is then
advise to go to the nearest Centro de Salud so that they can get tested for
Chagas. Once the public health office receives the information, then pubic
health workers are authorized to proceed with the fumigation. If we find
mosquito larvae in the pools of water, we place the tablets into the water with
the family’s permission. Before leaving each home, we advise the
family to perform physical preventative methods frequently such as moving
furniture around, sweeping, cleaning trash, emptying pools of water and wearing
insect repellent.
The next day, after the outreach,
my peers and I entered a public elementary school to deliver lessons on
preventative methods for Chagas and Dengue. We were dived into groups of 8 and
performed skits on how easily a vector-borne disease can be transmitted and the
consequence of not using preventative measures. We also found a song in Spanish
on youtube that sang about how to preventative mosquito bites, and ultimately
Dengue and other diseases transmitted by mosquitos. We had the class stand up
and do a dance to the song that we choreographed. At the end, we led a game
that demonstrated the pros of using insect repellent and rewarded winners of
the game with a bottle of insect repellent. The children were very attentive
and engaged during the entire presentation. We even asked questioned at the end
on character names and they remembered! I think the incorporation of the song
and dance move that go along with preventative actions that need to be done was
successful in getting the kids engaged and learning about how to keep
themselves and their families safe in a fun way.
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