THE HEALTH Services are sending a team of experts to Lady’s Mile beach in Limassol tomorrow in an effort to get to the bottom of the reported outbreak of phantom insect bites.
Health Services director Christos Christou told the Cyprus News Agency that a unit will carry out on-the-spot checks to confirm whether the infectious bites allegedly suffered by bathers are from mosquitoes or another as yet unrecorded insects harmful to humans.
According to Christou, Lady’s Mile and the surrounding areas suffer every year from an outbreak of gnats and mosquitoes multiplying in stagnant waters around the Eucalyptus forest, from the west side of the port to the salt lake in Limassol.
Regarding recent reports of people suffering infectious bites in the Lady’s Mile area next to the British bases in Akrotiri, he said: “This is an area which, indeed, has a problem due to the dense vegetation.”
So much so that deputies representing the Limassol district have approached the director asking that the health services take measures to solve the problem.
However, Christou noted that they have not received any complaints from members of the public or doctors who may have treated such bites. “There is no evidence,” he said.
Despite that a team will go to the area tomorrow to carry out on-the-spot checks to clarify what exactly is going on and exactly what type of insects are in the area beyond mosquitoes.
In the meantime, the health services have recommended spraying the area from the air using organic chemicals that tackle only mosquitoes.
Other measures are also being taken, said Christou, including use of insecticide in specific areas to control the mosquito populations.
The authorities will assess the effectiveness of the measures taken next week and decide accordingly how to proceed.
The health services director did not rule out the possibility that trouble-makers were spreading false information that the area was plagued with dangerous insects to harm the business interests of restaurant owners on the beach.
He called on the public not to panic, noting that the results of the investigations have yet to come through.
“We believe these bites come from mosquitoes due to the fact that we’ve seen a large concentration of mosquitoes in the area,” he said.
He has instructed officials to contact Limassol general hospital and the Limassol Medical Association to confirm whether any such cases have been recorded.
Christou also called any dermatologists or members of the public with experience of insect bites in the region to contact the health services on 22605554 or 25305006.
