No need to panic, citywide disinfection in Mile will not affect life or travel

Health authorities in Mile, a city in Yunnan province, say a citywide disinfection to control pests will not affect people's life or travel, and there is no need to panic.

There might be a slight odor during the spraying and medication process, said Mile's patriotic health campaign office, but it does not affect health.

The disinfection aims to reduce the density of harmful organisms such as rats, mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches, and small black insects in order to reduce the occurrence of diseases, the health office said.

The disinfection will be conducted within a 31-square-kilometer area of the urban area for a period of 18 days, from Tuesday to Sept 15.

A staff member at a lakeside hotel in Mile told Hubei province-based Jimu News that the disinfection work is conducted every year and will not affect the residents' normal life.

This is the third year that the city has conducted disinfection targeting Lasiohelea taiwana, or gall midges. Last year, the disinfection period was even longer, lasting 31 days.

"The midge is very small but its bites are quite severe. After it appeared in large numbers, both tourists and residents had strong reactions to the problem. We invited experts to conduct research, and they advised that continuous disinfection for three to five years is needed to effectively control the density of this species," a staff member of the health office told Red Star News, a news outlet based in Sichuan province.

The gall midge is a common species in China and is widely distributed in the southern, central, eastern, southwestern regions. It is also common in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Recently, many places across the country have carried out vector-borne disease prevention and control work.

The patriotic health campaign was first introduced in China in the 1950s to wipe out rats, flies, mosquitoes and other pests that carry and transmit infectious pathogens.