Mosquito Control Dept. Is

"Not Pleased" With Suva

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, May 10

WHITEHALL, a few weeks ago, com plimented Fiji on its anti-mosquito campaign, but Fiji’s Medical De partment Mosquito Control organisation is not pleased with the pat on the back.

Of 303 inspections made in four scat tered Suva areas in April, 53 revealed mosauito larvae, and this, says the Med ical Department, in a nasty tone, “reflects little credit on a community that has been warned so frequently about the mos quito menace.”

Bottles, tins, old tyres, discarded oil drums and roof gutters were all found to be places provided by the ingenuity of man for the benefit of breeding mosqui toes.

“In some cases,” adds the Department, “householders were breeding their own private stocks of aedes aegypti (respon sible for dengue and potentially respon sible for yellow fever) in anti-ant devices or in plates under ferns.”

Mr. Jock Owen, who was well-known on the New Guinea goldfields, in Morobe, in pre-war days, and who later purchased a store at Pinkenba, near Brisbane, has now sold this business for health reasons.

He is still residing in Brisbane.