By Khari Williams, Staff ReporterOF THE 3,000 Clarendon poultry farmers who requested assistance after the recent flood rains, only 135 have received compensation in the form of "chicken grants" from the Rural Agricultural Development Authority.
Dr. Sonia Copeland, a member of the RADA committee that deals with farmers' post-flood rehabilitation in Clarendon, said the 135 farmers each received 50 chickens and 10 bags of feed provided by the Ministry of Health and distributed through RADA. The parish was one of the hardest hit during the flood rains in late May and early June.
"Clarendon had a phenomenal situation dealing with (during the floods)," Dr. Copeland said. "Most of our poultry farmers (reside) along the central belt of the parish."
A rehabilitation programme is also being planned for crop farmers to receive $2,500 per half acre of land, but Dr. Copeland said the emphasis was being placed on the poultry industry now because of its long-term economic impact and extensive losses. Dr. Copeland, who is also a member of the Parish Disaster Committee of the Clarendon Parish Council, said losses incurred by individual farmers were as high as 81,000 and 30,000 chickens in two cases. She is appealing to private citizens and organisations to donate to the rehabilitation effort by calling the Parish Council, saying that 100 more farmers can be helped by private assistance.
The rehabilitation and restoration of poultry farms is the second phase of the emergency response, the first phase of which involved the clean-up of the farms and pest control measures to reduce the fly nuisance.
Dr. Copeland added that mosquito control was still being done by oiling stagnant water and fogging, but more work needs to be done in regards to collecting and removing bottles and other potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which could pose a public health problem.
"There's always opportunities for us to encourage stricter guidelines in terms of vector control - the whole area of source reduction," Dr. Copeland said.
The quality of the parish's water supply needs improvement because it was found to be of high turgidity, Dr. Copeland said, and the replacement of damaged pit latrines is another public health concern.
Some of those concerns were echoed by Stanford Reid, chief public health inspector for St. Ann. Mr Reid said 15 pit latrines were lost in the flooding, and the mosquito population had risen sharply after the heavy rains.
He said the mosquito control index - a measure of what percentage of homes contain breeding grounds for the insects - rose from 5.8 before the floods to about 14 afterwards, though he expects the number to have fallen again since vector the recent control work.
The 11 workers in the vector control division have also benefited from a new four-wheel drive Isuzu pickup courtesy of the Ministry of Health, Mr. Reid said, replacing the previous vehicle that was "old, dilapidated and almost not fit for the road." The workers are now able to move around easier to the areas needing fogging and/or oiling, including high-risk areas such as Pedro, Moneague, Discovery Bay and Alexandria. Mr. Reid said there are no fears of an outbreak of water-borne or other illnesses associated with the flooding, as people in the parish are observing public health guidelines.
