My Last Days in Puerto Escondido by Stephanie Barrera

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.