Effectiveness of National Dengue Prevention Campaign
Ministry of Sustainability and the EnvironmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Ms Yeo Wan Ling’s inquiry into the effectiveness of the National Dengue Prevention Campaign and the frequency of mosquito breeding inspections in common areas. Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu Hai Yien noted that post-campaign surveys confirm the programme’s success in raising awareness, with findings used to improve future outreach. To prioritize resources, the National Environment Agency uses case and gravitrap data to conduct targeted, frequent inspections in high-risk zones, including HDB estates. In 2021, this data-driven approach led to 631,000 islandwide inspections that uncovered approximately 18,500 breeding habitats. These measures are central to a holistic strategy aimed at suppressing mosquito populations and breaking the chain of dengue transmission.
Transcript
23 Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment whether the Ministry has measured the effectiveness of (i) the National Dengue Prevention Campaign and (ii) the frequency of enforcement agent checks on HDB corridors, drains and other common estate areas for mosquito breeding.
Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien: The National Environment Agency (NEA) adopts a holistic dengue control strategy to keep dengue incidence low, by keeping the mosquito population low and breaking the disease transmission chain. This includes outreach and engagement, as well as regular inspections of various premises for mosquito breeding sites.
The National Dengue Prevention Campaign is NEA’s key outreach and engagement programme on dengue. The annual programme rallies the community to stop dengue transmission, to prevent a surge in dengue cases ahead of the traditional dengue peak period, typically from June to October. NEA carries out post-campaign surveys to measure the effectiveness of the campaign and gather insights on the public’s perception of dengue prevention. The survey results, generally, show that the campaign has been effective in raising awareness on dengue prevention. NEA uses the survey findings and insights to sharpen and improve future campaigns.
NEA utilises daily dengue case data and mosquito population data collected from gravitraps fortnightly, to identify high risk areas. This allows NEA to prioritise mosquito breeding inspections and ensure effective deployment of limited manpower resources. As such, high-risk areas, which may include HDB estates, would be inspected more frequently. In 2021, NEA conducted about 631,000 inspections for mosquito breeding islandwide, including residential units, construction sites, common areas within the HDB estates, and public areas in landed estates, using this targeted inspection regime. This uncovered about 18,500 mosquito breeding habitats.