dengue prevention philippines Archives - Pest Control Philippines

October 19, 2022October 18, 2022

Dengue Prevention and Control: 7 Things Every Homeowner Should Do

What are things to do for dengue prevention and control at home?

Reduce possible habitats
Stay in screened areas
Use mosquito repellants
Keep your home airy and well-lit
Dry wet clothing and fabrics as soon as possible
Dispose of waste properly
Use pest control

Dengue fever is unfortunately very common in our tropical home — and the risk of catching it gets higher during and after the rainy season.

Dengue symptoms include high fever, nausea, vomiting, rashes, and various aches and pains. This sickness can be very difficult to deal with and recover from.

That said, there are many ways to reduce the risk of dengue, and possibly even avoid it entirely at home. It’s important to know what these are to help keep you and your family safe during this time of year! In this post, we’ve prepared seven dengue prevention and control tips for you to use at home:

Reduce possible habitats

Mosquitoes are known to like living near stagnant water because it provides the perfect environment for them to lay their larvae. When these hatches, the pupae can easily survive and grow since there is little to no water flow.

This is why it is important to look around your home for any possible habitats — i.e., pools of stagnant water. Whether they’re clean or dirty water, you should get rid of them. Take a look at objects such as tires, flower pots, pet water bowls, plastic containers, etc. around your home for any pools of water.

We also recommend checking your water systems (such as your septic tank and plumbing pipes) are free of any leaks. You can also drain and clean your roof gutters to avoid any build-up of water.

Reducing the habitat available for these mosquitoes by getting rid of these bodies of water can help prevent dengue at home.

Stay in screened areas

Adding screens to your windows and doors can prevent mosquitoes from entering your home. If you already have screens, make sure there are no holes or gaps. And, if there are any, have them replaced or repaired promptly.

Once you’ve checked your screened areas, make sure to keep them tightly shut once the sun sets, as this is the time of day when mosquitoes are most active. Keeping these areas closed off will also reduce the risk of them entering your home.

Use mosquito repellants

Using mosquito repellants, such as sprays, mosquito bands, anti-mosquito wipes, and even burning coils or incense around your home can drive these pests away. You must use these measures when you are outdoors, as you’re more exposed.

Indoors, you can use these repellants at night, when the mosquitoes are active.

Keep your home airy and well-lit

As we mentioned, mosquitoes like to frequent areas that are damp and have pools of water. But, they also like staying in places that are dark and cool.

To make them less likely to infest your home, you should try to keep your home airy and well-lit. This should help prevent your home from getting too humid, as well as dry up any damp or wet spots around the house.

Dry wet clothing and fabrics as soon as possible

Likewise, you should also avoid keeping any piles of wet clothing, towels, rugs, or other fabrics. This can attract mosquitoes, as they make the area cool and moist for them.

Keep any wet and soggy clothes or other items away from dry ones. Also, try to dry them as soon as possible, by either hanging them to dry under the sun or placing an electric fan nearby to air-dry them.

Dispose of waste properly

Aside from water, mosquitoes are also attracted to junk and dirt. Avoid leaving trash around your house. Likewise, avoid letting it pile up outside your house. Any pile of trash can end up housing these pests, and providing a nice habitat for them to lay their eggs. This is a big risk, as it could lead to an infestation — especially if your trash is wet or soggy.

We also suggest separating any liquids or wet garbage you want to throw away from the rest of your trash. Keep these in a closed and sealed bin until your trash is collected.

Use pest control

You can also periodically get your home inspected and treated for any mosquito problems you may have. Pest control partners, such as Topbest, are equipped with the materials, tools, and know-how you need to get rid of any pest problem you have — for good — and keep your home safe!

You never know when these mosquitoes will strike, or if any of the ones hanging around your home are carriers of a deadly disease. While these prevention methods above are a great way to control their numbers, it’s important to work with the professional team of Topbest. We will provide the right household pest control and preventative measures to prevent outbreaks within your home!

Key Takeaway

Dengue is one of the biggest threats that our home faces today. We never know where these pests are lurking, or when they might infect us — but thankfully, there are several dengue prevention and control measures that we can use at home to keep ourselves safe!

If you’re interested in working with us to clear out any pest problems you have, contact us here — we give free consultations!

March 13, 2017March 5, 2018

How to Stop Pests from Reproducing

Dealing with pests is one of the most frustrating things. For one, these pesky insects and rodents just keep finding ways to enter and reside in your home. This is a bad thing, especially since they carry viruses that can be detrimental to you and your family’s health. Fortunately, it is quite easy to access information regarding pest control, and even dengue prevention, in the Philippines. Through the various seminars regarding them and the copious amounts of information that can be found on the internet, it becomes easier for people to find solutions that will help them deal with pest infestations in their property.

One of these solutions is preventing pests from reproducing. Don’t worry because this is entirely possible. All you have to do is take note of the tips below!

Clean your Plants Regularly

Tidying your plants on a regular basis will prevent the increase of pest count in your home. Plants are usually where insects, most especially mosquitoes, lay their eggs. And by cleaning them every day, your plants will be a discouraging place for pests to stay.

Also, don’t forget to empty the collection pans for each of your plants, too. Water accumulates on the pans every time you water your plants and they are often where insects lay their eggs in. So drain them at least thrice a week or more and clean them thoroughly.

Avoid Filling Containers with Standing Water

Water is the most common place where insects dwell. Containers, pots, barrels, trash cans, and other vessels that may hold water should be cleaned and emptied to prevent pests from inhabiting these places. If you do need to stock water for emergency purposes, then make sure to cover their containers.

Your pool, porch, and other areas in your property might collect water during rainy days. To avoid pests from reproducing in these places, make sure to drain and clean them as well.

Cleanliness is Key

A good housekeeping routine is the simplest way to avoid the infestation and reproduction of pests in your place. Make it to a point to clean your house regularly so that it will not be an appealing habitat for unwanted pests. More so, avoiding and cleaning clutter and garbage in the vicinity of your property will also be helpful in keeping pests away.

Contact a Professional Pest Control Service Provider

If the population of pests in your home is already overwhelming and simple prevention methods are not effective anymore, then it’s time for you to call a professional pest control service provider. They can certainly help you eliminate these pests, and their larvae, completely.

Being knowledgeable about insect predators, their life cycle, and ecosystem is a great start to avoiding pests from entering and residing in your home. It also prevents you and your loved ones from being infected with diseases that these pests might carry.

February 21, 2017January 18, 2019

Pest Management for Food Businesses: 6 Steps to Eliminate Pests

In the Philippines, dengue prevention is essential because this viral disease is a serious threat to millions of Filipinos. However, do you know that pest control methods are not just practiced to avoid the numerous health problems that insects spread? Aside from carrying diseases, insects also destroy crops and inhabit food facilities, affecting food businesses everywhere in the country. As a result, companies in the food and beverage industry resort to practicing pest management techniques to try and eliminate these threats.

As a food business owner, it is your job to ensure that the products you offer consumers are not only delectable but safe as well. To achieve this, you should know how to get rid of the pests that might unknowingly contaminate the food you serve. Check these six steps that will help you efficiently eliminate pests in your business!

Step 1: Inspection

The first step in pest management is inspection. This means that before anything else, you should inspect the facility to check if there are insects residing in the corners and rarely visited areas of your place. In some food processor businesses, they conduct weekly inspections to make sure that there is no trace of pest infestation in their site. The routine check-up should consist of checking possible pest hideouts, such as storage areas, receiving docks, and employee break rooms. Moreover, you should inspect possible entry points, including food and water sources or harborage zones.

Step 2: Preventive Action

The inspection will reveal if there is an existing case of or there is a risk of pest infestation in your building. If, after the inspection you found out that there are no signs of insect outbreak in your facility but there are risks of attracting pests, then your next step is implementing preventative methods. In short, do not wait for insects to invade your compound. Instead, prevent them from entering your site in the first place to avoid further problems in the future.

Step 3: Identification of Pests

If after the inspection, it became clear that there are signs of pest infestation in your business, then simple preventive methods will not do. Instead, you have to find a way to eliminate them. The first step in doing this is

Step 4: Analysis

After determining which types of pests are in your building, you have to identify why they are there in the first place. Do your walls and floors have holes? Is there an accumulation of food debris and moisture in certain areas in your site? Understanding why and how they can enter your facility will help you determine which pest control treatment to use.

Step 5: Selection of Treatment

There are two types of pest treatment: chemical and non-chemical control. Try non-chemical treatments first because they are not as risky – compared to the alternative – to your food safety program. If the problem continues to persist, that’s when you should start to consider chemical treatments. However, it is important to remember to apply treatments on select areas for certain pests only. This means that you should perform different methods for various pests because each infestation is unique. If you need help identifying which treatment to use, contact a pest control company. They can help you determine which to use or if the two treatments must be combined to effectively eliminate the pests.

Step 6: Monitoring

Pest management does not stop once treatments are applied. To ensure that your business is truly safe from pesky insects and rodents, you have to monitor various things. First, you have to monitor the pest control process. See to it that the methods you chose to employ are applied correctly. Failure to properly implement treatment might result to the continued persistence of the problem. Next, you have to monitor the pest activity in your building while treatments are being applied. This will help you understand if the method that you chose is effective or not. Lastly, you have to monitor pest activity in your site even after your building was declared free of pests. This will help you determine if your building is starting to attract unwanted guests once again.

Pest management is essential in the food and beverage industry. That is why, as a business owner, you are encouraged to take note of the pest management steps listed above. This will not only keep your building safe from pest infestation; it will also keep you, your employees, and your customers safe from the diseases that insects and rodents carry.

August 25, 2016July 19, 2019

4 Diseases Caused by Insects

Insects are some of the most common disease vectors in the planet. Insects can spread bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens by their bite or their feces. Many insects are responsible for disease transmission from one host to another and perhaps the most known vector is the mosquitoes. They are notorious for diseases like malaria, dengue and filiarasis. If ever you suspect harmful insects in your house, call your local pest terminator immediately like termite control. That way, you will ensure that your house will be safe from disease-causing insects.

The following are the most common diseases that are caused by insects:

Dengue fever

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by the dengue virus that one can get from an infected mosquito. The symptoms are high fever, headache, vomiting, pain in the muscles and joints, rashes in the skin, which typically begins three to fourteen days after the infection. An infected person may recover in less than a week but in some cases, the disease develops into the life threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever. This results in bleeding, low levels of blood platelets and blood plasma leakage. This can also lead to dengue shock syndrome, where blood pressure lowers into dangerous levels.

African Sleeping Sickness

The African sleeping sickness is a parasitic disease of humans and other animals. It is caused by the protozoa of the Trypanosoma brucei and it is usually transmitted by the bite of an infected tsetse fly. This is more common rural areas. In the first stage of the disease, the patient will experience headache, fever, joint pains and itchiness. Weeks or months later, the patient will feel numbness, have poor coordination, get easily confused and have trouble sleeping. Treatment of this disease is ideal during the first stage to avoid further complications like neurological symptoms. Failure of treatment can result in the patient’s death.

Tick-borne Encephalitis

Tick-borne encephalitis, or TBE, is a contagious viral disease that targets the central nervous system. This disease usually manifests as meningitis, encephalitis, or meningoencephalitis. It can infect a range of hosts including cattle, sheep, birds, rodents, carnivores, and humans. It can also be transferred from animal to human, with pets and ruminants (cattle and sheep) providing the principal source infection for man. The virus can infect the brain (encephalitis), the meninges (meningitis) or both. Mortality is 1-2% and death occurs 5 to 7 days after the appearance of neurologic signs.

Malaria

Malaria is another mosquito-borne disease that affects humans and animals caused by parasitic protozoans. Symptoms usually include fatigue, vomiting, fever, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause seizures, coma, or even death. These symptoms begin two weeks after being bitten. If not properly treated, the patient will experience a recurrence of the disease after a while. For those who survived the infection, reinfection usually has milder symptoms.

These diseases can be prevented by making sure your house and surroundings are clean. Remember, a squeaky clean house can drive insects away and prevent them from turning your house into a breeding ground.