Dengue ‘Sweeps’
Begin in Sardinal and El Coco
(InfoWebPress) – With the goal of eliminating as many of the
breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry dengue fever as possible,
more than 200 volunteers met last Feb. 8 in Sardinal and El Coco to
go house by house and collect solid waste and also encourage
neighbors to clean up their yards and other common areas — the most
effective way to reduce the risk of contracting this viral disease.
This initiative is promoting a new solid waste management culture in
the country, implemented through local efforts.
Last weekend’s work resulted in 1,600 Guanacaste home being free of
dengue. Additionally, the initiative carried and educational and
environmental message to people, inviting communities to reflect on
issues such as consumption, waste management and citizen
responsibility.
“Sweeps against Dengue” is a project sponsored by brewer Cerveceria
Costa Rica as part of its social corporate responsibility program,
in collaboration with Terra Nostra Association. The project’s goal
is to help significantly reduce the number of dengue cases compared
to previous years. The project also promotes citizen participation
and responsibility related to adequate waste management. If every
citizen commits to being responsible for cleaning up his or her
house and surrounding areas, the project’s rational goes, the impact
of this potentially fatal disease could be substantially reduced.
Dengue-carrying mosquitoes often breed in discarded objects that
hold water for an extended period of time, including old tires and
cans.
The year’s first “sweep” in the Guanacaste region had as its
operations centers the Bernardo Gutierrez School in Sardinal and the
Central School in El Coco.
In Sardinal, all communities in the central town area were visited
and cleaned, while in El Coco the barrios targeted were El Jobo, San
Martin, La Aurora, Los Canales and La Segovia — in addition to some
sectors near the beach and the downtown area.
The cleaning campaign helped collect all sorts of residues:
plastics, glass, aluminum, tires, oil drums and other materials such
as sections of roof gutters, all of which could serve and mosquito
breeding grounds.
Participants in these community sweeps are all volunteers, while
some state institutions also provide support, including the Ministry
of Health and the Costa Rican Social Security System (CCSS).
Locally, organizations and businesses that collaborated include the
Municipality of Carrillo, Supermercado Luperon, the Coco Beach
Community Development Association, the Carrillo and Sardinal health
boards, the Sardinal Health Committee, COOMUREC R.L., the ADEP
retired teachers association, the youth committee of the Red Cross,
Holcim, RITEVE and Punto Rojo.
The El Coco and Sardinal sweep was the first of 15 that will take
place this year in different communities throughout the country
which in the 2007-2008 period reported the most dengue cases.
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