Mr BALCH - 2000-02-29
The Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries has just informed the House of the good work achieved by our quarantine officers in detecting the giant African snail on a cargo ship which had travelled from East Timor last month. At the same time, larvae of 2 exotic dengue mosquitos were also detected. Minister, can you give any indication of how successful the spraying program has been?
ANSWER
I am pleased to stand in this House and yet again catalogue another good initiative of this government in maintaining its vigilance about important issues for peoples’ lifestyle in the Northern Territory and there are very few more important issues than human health.
Dengue fever is a terrible disease which, fortunately, we don’t have here in the Northern Territory. But as was reported in the NT News on 31 January, the larvae of 2 of these exotic dengue mosquitoes were detected by Quarantine officers in some cargo of mining equipment coming back from Kupang in West Timor. Because the vessel had berthed some time previously there were fears that the adult mosquitoes had had time to breed, and we immediately swung into action with a plan to look for not only larvae but eggs and adult mosquitoes.
This is something that the Entomology Branch of Territory Health Services is very skilled at, because for 25 years we’ve had dengue mosquito traps around the harbour. We’ve been very, very careful to make sure that ships coming in are inspected in their bilges and other places holding water, and we’ve been very careful to make sure that this mosquito is eradicated.
There are 2 nasties. The first is aedes algopictus, which is the Asian tiger mosquito, an exotic to Australia, and aedes aegypti, which is the dengue mosquito, and is found in north Queensland, but absent in the Northern Territory. We want to make sure these vectors continue to be absent. We are one of the very few areas in the world, tropical world, where we’re free of these mosquitoes and hence free of dengue outbreaks.
We worked in cooperation with Quarantine officers from the Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, and we misted the area immediately. The bill for the misting was a mere $2000, which pales into insignificance when one looks at the enormous costs associated with treating people who have the misfortune of contracting these diseases. Although I had wished that the Commonwealth would have seen its way to pick this bill up, I’m quite happy to pick it up on the basis that I think it’s money well spent. There can be no doubt that early detection is very important.
The traps around our harbour hang in the mangroves throughout Darwin, those fishermen and mud crabbers will see these. There is some dry ice put into the top of a small bag which attracts the mosquito and we catch them and we are able to, at our laboratories out on the Darwin campus, establish what type of mosquitos we have. This good work has been recognised. The head of the unit was recognised recently on Australia Day as having contributed significantly to the Northern Territory and received an award for that.
While I am on my feet, I would like to talk about mosquitoes also in Alice Springs. We now have a situation where the flood levels are akin to that in 1974. We are able to go back to our records and see the high levels of disease that came from mosquitoes in that time. There is something that people can do, and that is follow the very simple instructions of Territory Health Services in terms of covering up and using a DEET repellent and making sure you don’t go outside in the morning and evening if you can avoid it, making sure that your flywire is in good nick. I say that because it is evident that our sentinel flocks, which are currently free of indicators of any disease, are being monitored very regularly, but those flocks in Western Australia have already been indicated positive for disease, and I believe its a matter of time before Kunjin virus MVE which is Murray Valley Encephalitis and Australian Encephalitis could be present in Alice Springs. So I would urge vigilance for those people locally, and I would assure them that we are doing all we can to make sure that we monitor our sentinel chickens and our mosquito harvesting devices.
ANSWER
I am pleased to stand in this House and yet again catalogue another good initiative of this government in maintaining its vigilance about important issues for peoples’ lifestyle in the Northern Territory and there are very few more important issues than human health.
Dengue fever is a terrible disease which, fortunately, we don’t have here in the Northern Territory. But as was reported in the NT News on 31 January, the larvae of 2 of these exotic dengue mosquitoes were detected by Quarantine officers in some cargo of mining equipment coming back from Kupang in West Timor. Because the vessel had berthed some time previously there were fears that the adult mosquitoes had had time to breed, and we immediately swung into action with a plan to look for not only larvae but eggs and adult mosquitoes.
This is something that the Entomology Branch of Territory Health Services is very skilled at, because for 25 years we’ve had dengue mosquito traps around the harbour. We’ve been very, very careful to make sure that ships coming in are inspected in their bilges and other places holding water, and we’ve been very careful to make sure that this mosquito is eradicated.
There are 2 nasties. The first is aedes algopictus, which is the Asian tiger mosquito, an exotic to Australia, and aedes aegypti, which is the dengue mosquito, and is found in north Queensland, but absent in the Northern Territory. We want to make sure these vectors continue to be absent. We are one of the very few areas in the world, tropical world, where we’re free of these mosquitoes and hence free of dengue outbreaks.
We worked in cooperation with Quarantine officers from the Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, and we misted the area immediately. The bill for the misting was a mere $2000, which pales into insignificance when one looks at the enormous costs associated with treating people who have the misfortune of contracting these diseases. Although I had wished that the Commonwealth would have seen its way to pick this bill up, I’m quite happy to pick it up on the basis that I think it’s money well spent. There can be no doubt that early detection is very important.
The traps around our harbour hang in the mangroves throughout Darwin, those fishermen and mud crabbers will see these. There is some dry ice put into the top of a small bag which attracts the mosquito and we catch them and we are able to, at our laboratories out on the Darwin campus, establish what type of mosquitos we have. This good work has been recognised. The head of the unit was recognised recently on Australia Day as having contributed significantly to the Northern Territory and received an award for that.
While I am on my feet, I would like to talk about mosquitoes also in Alice Springs. We now have a situation where the flood levels are akin to that in 1974. We are able to go back to our records and see the high levels of disease that came from mosquitoes in that time. There is something that people can do, and that is follow the very simple instructions of Territory Health Services in terms of covering up and using a DEET repellent and making sure you don’t go outside in the morning and evening if you can avoid it, making sure that your flywire is in good nick. I say that because it is evident that our sentinel flocks, which are currently free of indicators of any disease, are being monitored very regularly, but those flocks in Western Australia have already been indicated positive for disease, and I believe its a matter of time before Kunjin virus MVE which is Murray Valley Encephalitis and Australian Encephalitis could be present in Alice Springs. So I would urge vigilance for those people locally, and I would assure them that we are doing all we can to make sure that we monitor our sentinel chickens and our mosquito harvesting devices.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016