Abstract

The results of the studies on community characteristics, on malathion spraying effectiveness, the evaluation of the new strategy, and the surveys of the literature show that there are two possibilities concerning the preventive spraying influence on the DHF prevention programme: a positive impact or a negative impact. A positive impact is the use of the preventive spraying as the beginning of community campaigns in breeding place eradication. This is based on the current fact that without any government intervention, the community tends to be reluctant to work together for eliminating breeding places. This positive impact can be maintained if the Ministry of Health uses the Singaporean of Cuban method in vector surveillance, or at least larva checking and larvaciding are tightly executed. These activities clearly need strong supervision for ensuring the compliance of community and field officials. Implicitly, this requires political leaders involvement as the patron and the watchdog of the programme.