São Gonçalo conducts a survey on the prevalence of Aedes aegypti

In the first week of January, Environmental Health Monitoring Teams from São Gonçalo will conduct a rapid survey of the Index Aedes aegypti (LIRAa) in the municipality. The procedure is a methodology that allows rapid identification, by sampling, of the number of characteristics with containers containing Aedes aegypti larvae, mosquitoes that transmit dengue, chikungunya, zika virus and yellow fever. For this reason, the spraying of insecticides, which is done every week in the city, will not be done.

LIRAa, a method implemented by the Department of Health, is performed four times a year, on average. Its methodology consists of stratification of the municipality, where geo-identification data is fed into a computer program, thus defining a certain number of blocks to work on.

Once these blocks have been drawn, one-fifth of the characteristics in them will be checked for foci of Aedes aegypti, which, when located, are sent to the entomological laboratory, in order to check whether they are positive for Aedes or not.

Once it is located and analysed, the infection index for each neighborhood in the city will be quantified, and with this, field work can be planned, optimizing human resources and inputs to be applied.

LIRAa, being an agreed measure, is also used by the state government to release funds for dengue vector control.

During the week of the LIRAa round, all mosquito control activities with insecticides and larvicides were suspended so that the analysis of the indicators was not compromised.