Cyro Grossi Amphitheater receives representatives from the Intersectoral Dengue Control Committee

The State Department of Health (Sesa) of Paraná brought together representatives of the Intersectoral Dengue Control Committee this Wednesday morning (3), at the State University of Londrina. The ordinary meeting was held at the Cyro Grossi Amphitheater (CCB) and aimed to debate strategies and joint actions to combat dengue, amid the current public health emergency scenario resulting from the disease. Paraná has already recorded 77 deaths and almost 160 thousand cases of dengue since the beginning of this epidemiological period, on July 30, 2023. Of the 160 thousand cases, 23.4 thousand were from the last week.

UEL is part of the committee as it has had the Surveillance and Control Working Group since 2016. Aedes aegypti. Far beyond controlling infestation rates and the presence of the virus on the university campus, the Dengue GT aims to propose strategies based on the knowledge produced by teachers and students in postgraduate programs at Study Centers, such as Biological Sciences.

Some of these actions were discussed at the meeting by the director of the Center for Biological Sciences (CCB), João Zequi, and by professors Gislayne Trindade Vilas Bôas and Laurival Antônio Vilas Bôas, both from the Department of General Biology (CCB).

“This demand from society regarding dengue is in line with what we do here, with research and student training. Our role here is to develop low-cost technologies applicable to the National Plan to Combat Dengue and that are viable on a daily basis to monitor the virus, the vector, which is super important for control. But the focus is environmental education with health involving the population”, he assesses.

The director explains that the University Campus takes continuous actions to monitor the presence of mosquitoes Aedes aegypti. “Monitoring is carried out constantly and addresses where the vector is and whether viruses are circulating. This is important because when you release the infestation rate on the Campus, the Centers that have the most infestation need to take some action, people need to be involved. So, if you make a check list, which is a check of the space to remove breeding sites”, highlights professor João Zequi.

Adopting the “10 minutes against Aedes at UEL” campaign as its motto, checking spaces was one of the first actions implemented by the GT in 2016. Then, traps called ovitraps came into play, which aim to collect the mosquito eggs and indicate their presence within a radius of up to 200 meters.

Committee

Created in 2019, the Intersectoral Dengue Control Committee is made up of 13 departments, agencies and bodies of the State Government, also involving representatives of the Paraná Legislature and Judiciary. Representatives from the Public Ministry, Civil Defense, 17th Health Region, Detran-PR, Tiro de Guerra, Londrina Medical Association (AML) and State Health Council were present at this meeting.