In focus: Mozzie monitoring and the City of Salisbury’s award-winning project

Awards are just one way to measure value of a program. But when we learned we’d helped The City of Salisbury win the SA Health and Environmental Health Australia Awards, we were happy to talk all things mosquito surveillance at the recent Environmental Health Australia SA Conference.

Our involvement started when the Council engaged Healthy Environs to help them review their Mosquito Control Program. We were asked to review their program to ensure it focussed on priority areas to reduce public health risks and nuisance from local mosquitoes populations.

We assigned an expert team and over the 2021/22 summer season, our program uncovered additional areas and actions that we recommended the City of Salisbury engage in for ongoing control. We also highlighted the importance of ongoing surveillance and treatment to support local, regional and statewide approaches to mosquito control.

The project was recognised in the Environmental Health Australia Awards. The City of Salisbury was awarded the SA Health Award for Excellence in Community Focused Environmental Health Practice in Regional or Metropolitan Area(s) for demonstrating the project was community focused and responding to the needs of our community and has led to improvements in Environmental Health practice.

Our very own Luke Ragless was invited to prospect on the Salisbury's Mosquito Activity and Breeding Sites Review we conducted in 2021-22, supporting the City of Salisbury’s broader program at the 41st Environmental Health Australia SA Conference on November 24 last year.    

There’s an old saying: anyone who thinks they’re too small to make a difference has never been bitten by a mosquito. We’re proud of the valued contribution our small and mighty team is making in the work of organisations many times our scale and complexity.