Emergency Vector Control Using Chemicals: A Handbook For Relief Warkers

Each time there is a natural or man-made disaster the affected population tends to take flight into the surrounding areas. This rapid change of environment: loss of homes, livestock, family and friedns, couse great stress to individuals and the weakening of health throughout the population (PAHO), 1982). In adition to this, people are often forced into crowded and insanitary conditions. Overpopulation in confined areas, without adequate water supply, health services, food, shelter and sanitation favours an increase in arthropods and domestic rodents, and the spread of the associated communicable diseases (PAHO, 1982)Aid workers faced with problems of vector control i an emergency do not always have the experience and kowledge necessary for assessing the medical and entomological situation, designing, and implementing an appropriate project for their control.

The handbook does not provide solutions to specific problems, rather it guides the user through a process by which the reader can develop an appropriate strategy for controlling the problems being faced. This handbook is based on extensive literature review and analysis, personal communications with leading experts and the authors experience of vector control in refugee camps.