Community Communication and Insecticide Distribution

La participación ayuda en la lucha contra el Mal de Chagas (Participation helps in the fight against Chagas disease).
Clarín
Valeria Román
Feb. 10, 2007

A strong partnership between rural communities and the government is critical to controlling infestations of the ‘kissing bug’ that causes Chagas, the Argentine newpaper Clarín reports. Fumigation or widespread insecticide use in at-risk homes has been effective in controlling the insect populations and in limiting cases of Chagas disease. The kissing bugs prefer to live in adobe or wood huts, which are easily accessible from the outside. Therefore, as soon as insecticides wear off, the bugs are free to move back in and infect their victims.

Currently, there is generally poor communication between government agencies that organize insecticide distribution and the communities that need it. Community members do not report re-infestations and disorganized, poor, bureaucratic governments are slow to monitor bug populations and fumigate as needed. This article reports on a combined American-Argentine study, which found that increasing public awareness of Chagas, encouraging communities to remain vigilant for the kissing bug, and facilitating reporting pathways from the communities to the government decreased the number of Chagas cases.

Creating community discussions and networks to watch out for Chagas is the first step in prevention. Chagas most devastatingly affects communities that are not reached by public health publicity efforts. Many of these communities are poor enough that most people will not have television, internet or radio access to tell them what to look out for. Thus, word of mouth is crucial to spreading awareness of the disease. Thus, community members must create a discussion network to track the spread of the insect population. Only then can the government accurately determine where fumigation is needed.

While community awareness and organization can be fostered by government or non-profit public health outreach programs, it is much more difficult to improve government responsiveness. Many of the countries most affected by Chagas are poor, and lack resources to easily manufacture and distribute large amounts of insecticide to rural communities that are often scattered, unmapped, and hard to access. Some kind of efficient reporting system that takes into account the citizens’ limited means of communication must also be developed.

While the ideas proposed in this article are logical, their implementation is much more difficult. Improvements might be more consistent and sustainable if countries were to finance the one-time destruction of adobe/wood housing and replace it with concrete buildings that the bugs do not prefer to infest.

Apologies to those who don’t speak Spanish, but for those who do, check out the article at:
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2007/10/02/sociedad/s-03203.htm