The good news in south China’s Guangdong Province is Sunday was the first day in October where the case count did not exceed 1,000, tallying 910 cases, according to a Xinhua report Monday. This brings the total cases in the outbreak to 31,136 as of Monday.
The capital city of Guangzhou accounts for the bulk dengue fever cases at 26,305, with 20 or the 21 prefecture level municipalities reporting cases in the province.
In response to the largest dengue outbreak in the province in 20 years, officials with the water bureau in Guangzhou have introduced the mosquitofish, fish that consume mosquito larvae, to “controllable static waters.”
The move to use the invasive species, mosquitofish, has not gone unopposed. Li Yanliang, chairman of the National Aquatic Wildlife Conservation Association advised that the introduction of the fish must be meticulous; however, the water bureau cannot account for the numbers they used.
The neighboring province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has reported in excess of 450 cases. 23 provinces and regions of China have experienced dengue fever this year.
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Use of fish to control the Aedes vectors will NOT work, because these mosquitoes only breed in containers- natural & artificial. Natural containers: coconut shell, bamboo stump, leaf axils, tree holes, etc, Artificial containers: pail, concrete tank, etc etc. Even if you want to introduce fish into these containers, how do you search all of them? If you can find them, why not just remove the water, or just bury or dispose off the containers?