Suva's Mosquitoes

How War Has Increased the Pest

Prom Our Own Correspondent SUVA, June 10. rE steps necessary to place Fiji in a condition of defence involving much re-arrangement of buildings, much new building, much digging, and so forth —have produced a new problem for Suva —namely, a first-class mosquito pest. Suva always has had more mos quitoes than it wants; but the pest now is very bad.

Suva is on the “wet” side of Viti Levu, so that every tin thrown carelessly away from a military camp, every hole dug, whether to hold a post or create a shel ter-trench, soon is filled with rain-water; and, in, Suva, stagnant water means mosquito larvae.

Suva’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr.

G. R. Baxter, has been on the war-path, and he has reported the position in emphatic terms to the Suva Town Board, His report indicates the astonishing number of places where water may lie and mosquitoes may breed —slit trenches, tins, bottles and bamboos discarded by defence workers, drains blocked by dumpings from new shelters and con struction work, hundreds of drums set up as an emergency water supply.

The problem is made worse by a labour shortage—there are not enough workers to cover the territory in and around Suva and deal with the stagnant water. So the responsibility is being placed direct upon householders—if they

do not keep down the mosquito larvae in their particular areas, they will be heav ily fined.

Mosquitoes themselves are a sufficient nuisance in Suva; but there also is a danger that they may spread dengue fever. Fiji has had more than one bad dengue epidemic, and is anxious to avoid another—an anxiety that has become manifest since an epidemic was reported in Australia.