LUCEA, Hanover — The Ministry of Health’s public education campaign, as part of its pilot for the Sterilised Insect Technique (SIT) aimed at reducing mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, is expected to start in January, after a year’s delay.

Last December, the Ministry of Health and Wellness disclosed during a town hall meeting in Negril that the public education component of the campaign would start in January 2020.

However, Dr Sherine Huntley Jones, medical entomologist in the ministry, told the Jamaica Observer that the programme was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Given the outbreak of COVID, the communication campaign that was to have started earlier this year was delayed and is still delayed, because we went into the pandemic and then focus went into that direction as it relates to our media campaign.

“And so, we are hoping to commence that media campaign [in] January 2021, with the view that we can initiate or go in the pilot by the end of next year,” she explained.

The nuclear Sterile Insect Technique is a form of “insect birth control”.

The process involves rearing large quantities of male mosquitoes and sterilising them, using radiation in dedicated facilities, and then releasing them to mate with females in the wild. Females that mate with sterile males produce no offspring, thus reducing the next generation’s population.

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, during his address to the meeting in Negril last year, had explained the importance of the public education drive.

“One of the issues with breeding mosquitoes and releasing them…is that, just as how we are accustomed to bush medicine, we going to say, ‘Government a try kill we off, a send more mosquito after us’. And, it only takes one troublemaker to start spreading that rumour,” said Dr Tufton.

“So, we have to get a public education component to let Jamaicans know that, in the case of the pilot project…because we are not doing it in the entire country initially — the mapping of the country is important, where they will choose a particular community in a particular parish — we have to educate the people as to what this is all about,” the minister added.

The mosquito mass-rearing and egg-storing facility at the National Public Health Laboratory is capable of producing more than a million eggs weekly.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also impacted the delivery of a gamma radiation source that the department of nuclear sciences at The University of the West Indies (UWI) will be using to sterilise the insects that are currently being bred.

“We are awaiting as well for them [UWI] to get the gamma source that will be used in the radiation. We should have gotten that source this year. Again, because of the COVID outbreak, and especially because of the impact it had in Europe, the purchase and delivery of the source also have been delayed,” disclosed Dr Huntley Jones.

She argued that the year-long delay of the project will not result in a cost overrun, “because we maintain a large proportion of the population in the egg state and the eggs can last up to a year, and they are still viable. So, once you get them out and put them in water, they will still come out”.

Besides, the medical entomologist said the delay has provided the team with extra time “to perfect our rearing procedures and really maximise on our egg production and colony maintenance”.

The health and wellness ministry’s participation in the Caribbean and Latin America regional pilot project is being undertaken in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has provided the equipment and training of individuals from Jamaica.

Dr Huntley Jones said Jamaica is currently the trendsetter in the use of Sterilised Insect Technique in the region. She said, too, that the intent is to provide the service to other Caribbean countries.

“Jamaica is the only country that is quite advance in terms of its preparation to do the pilot, and, in fact, we are hoping that Jamaica’s facility will become a centre of excellence that will provide training for the rest of the Caribbean, not only training, but, hopefully, we will have a facility that is able to rear mosquitoes, sterilise them, and export them to different Caribbean territories,” she argued, adding that that is the long-term vision.

“…but certainly, Jamaica is way ahead in terms of [us] being the only one with such a facility. We are the only one that has sufficient data, we are the only one that has developed the capacity for maintenance and doing this kind of project,” she said.

SIT began in the 1930s, however, in a document published in Nature on July 17, 2019, it was disclosed that, for the first time, a combination of the nuclear SIT with the incompatible insect technique has led to the successful suppression of mosquito populations — a promising step in the control of mosquitoes that carry dengue, Zika virus and many other devastating diseases.

The pilot trial in Guangzhou, China, was carried out with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.