Health ministry in Jamaica creating guide to Zika prevention

Jamaica’s Ministry of Health has partnered with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop educational communication about the Zika virus.

Sherine Huntley-Jones, medical entomologist in the ministry, told the Jamaica Information Service that the objective is to influence behavioural change within the population, kickstart action to combat the disease.

She noted that while people have information about Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses, the knowledge has not translated into action.

“In the past our messages have been very wide and general,” she said.

The new guide will be targeted at specific groups that where the government identify as needed behaviour change.

They include tyre shop and fleet owner-operators, and families affected by Congenital Zika syndrome and Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Tyre shop operators, said Huntley-Jones, are being targeted as tyres are the second largest breeding ground for the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika.

Role and responsibilities

A team of consultants from Johns Hopkins University, STATE, USA, visited Jamaica earlier this year to get feedback on a draft message guide.

The team met with a “multi-sectoral group” in a two-day workshop.

The consultants returned to the island this month for follow-up discussions.

The final draft is to be prepared by the team back in the States.

Huntley-Jones said that the guide will outline the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders in order to enable effective communication going forward.

Social communication and community mobilisation are critical to controlling mosquito breeding, which is key to stopping the spread of the Zika virus, she added.

“With all our efforts, if we do not get persons on board and taking the necessary actions to control breeding in and around their immediate environment then it is going to affect the overall success of our [vector control] programme.”