The Ministry of Health has activated the protocol provided for in the Entomological Surveillance System after the detection of three adult specimens and a mosquito larva of the Aedes albopictus species, known as the tiger mosquito.in one of the traps located in a greenhouse Tacoronte (Tenerife).
The discovery has caused the paralysis of the activity of the company that owns the greenhouse to prevent the movement of workers in the area, at the same time that a security perimeter has been established to carry out a diagnosis of the situation and location of possible breeding sites, as well as placing a greater number of traps.
A work team from General Directorate of Public Health and the University Institute of Tropical Diseases of Canary Islands has moved to the area without observing more specimens or breeding points in the rest of the traps located in the nearby area,”eminently agricultural and without the presence of nearby population centers“.
In any case, they have recalled that the presence of the mosquito does not mean the spread of diseases that are not present in the territory.
After these tasks, The number of traps placed in the areas close to the detection point has been reinforced and the sampling frequency has been increased, so that the traps will be reviewed on a weekly basis.
“Tenerife has been monitored for the detection of this type of mosquitoes since 2013 by installing 196 specific traps (total in the Canary Islands: 635 traps), 21 of them were installed in the greenhouse where these specimens were detected,” Health recalled.
Likewise, the regional Executive has recalled that in September of this year the 18 months since the last detection of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, or dengue mosquito, on La Palma“which could lead to being able to declare the eradication of the vector in this area, as was done in May 2019 with the detection on the island of Fuerteventura in 2017.”
The last detection of Aedes aegypti occurred last December in a home in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, after which tracking, fumigation, trapping and surveillance were carried out without any specimen being detected in the area since then.
