The mosquito is the deadliest animal in the world, spreading diseases such as Chikungunya, Dengue fever, Lymphatic filariasis, Malaria, Yellow fever, West Nile fever and Zika caused by parasites, viruses and bacteria transmitted by the Aedes aegypti, Anopheles and Culex mosquitoes that kill more persons than any other creature.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – reminded that Guyana recorded 108,000 positive tests for malaria in 2020-2023 with 24,000 in 2024 alone − the highest rate of cases in the Caribbean that accounted for three per cent of all malaria cases in the Americas annually.
The country also recorded 51 deaths by vector-borne diseases in the last three years including 19,000 positive tests for Dengue and over 190 cases of Filaria. These diseases are a countrywide public health hazard but the hinterland Regions − Barima-Waini, Cuyuni-Mazaruni, Potaro-Siparuni and Rupununi − are the most, and worst, affected. Malaria is endemic in all four regions where 85-90 per cent of cases occur.
Mr. Granger pointed out that the Constitution mandates that “…The State shall protect the environment, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures designed to prevent pollution and ecological degradation, promote conservation, and secure sustainable development and the use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development. The Constitution mandates, further, that “…Everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to his or her well-being.”
In order to fulfil this Constitutional mandate and to coordinate the work of other agencies to protect the environment, the APNU+AFC Coalition had established the Department of the Environment, created the Corps of Wardens to enforce environmental security regulations in the hinterland and launched the Green State Development Strategy: Vision 2040.
The PPPC administration, unintelligently, discarded the Strategy, dismantled the Corps of Wardens, demolished the Department of the Environment, notionally merging its functions within the Ministry of Natural Resources, and redrafted its Low Carbon Development Strategy. Inevitably and unsurprisingly, as a result of the reduced environmental enforcement, supervision and surveillance caused by these revisions, environmental abuses continued and the spread of vector-borne diseases in the hinterland increased.
The Former President emphasised that dangerous mosquitoes thrive in habitats created by the reckless disposal of receptacles, particularly plastic bottles, styrofoam food boxes, coconut shells, derelict vehicles, containers and used tyres, unregulated roadside dumps, stagnant pools of water in congested canals, drains and trenches, excavations for building infrastructure and mining pits. The spread of diseases is exacerbated by the economic exploitation of the environment by logging, mining, trading, tourism, changes in land use, extension of public infrastructure and increased human and commodity traffic at hinterland riverine stellings – at Bartica, Charity, Corriverton, Essequibo Islands, Kumaka, and Parika.
Mr. Granger reminded that, as President, he had proposed, at the Malaria Summit in London in April 2018, an international support strategy directed towards protecting citizens against the spread of malaria, preventing and limiting vector-borne infections by the dissemination of quality health information, providing improved tools for diagnosing and identifying active cases and by procuring high-quality combination treatment to ensure full cure of infected persons and to avoid drug-resistant malaria.
The former President advised that vector-borne diseases should be dealt with as both an urgent environmental and public health hazard. The State has a responsibility to continuously eradicate the vectors’ habitats through enforcing safe and sustainable practices in the mining and forestry sectors and to eliminate vector-breeding sites at the household, neighbourhood, village, municipality and regional levels. Vector-borne diseases persist because the State is not doing its duty to protect the environment to make the country safe for future generations. 󠄀