FRANCAIS

April 23, 2003

Health Minister Dave Chomiak today announced an aggressive $5.8 million strategy to address the threat of West Nile virus (WNv) in Manitoba.

"During the past year, Manitoba has been recognized as a leader in taking quick action to deal with West Nile virus," said Chomiak. "Our plan is to continue providing a comprehensive and far-reaching strategy that will put the province in a state of readiness for this year’s mosquito season."

The strategy includes:

Surveillance: a surveillance system for dead birds from the corvid family, sentinel chickens, horses, mosquitoes and humans including centralized testing.

Source Reduction: a public education and communication campaign to encourage Manitobans to keep their private property as free as feasible of breeding sites for the Culex mosquito.

Personal Protection: a public education and communication campaign. The campaign will focus on personal protection and prevention and will include pamphlets, posters, fact sheets, media bulletins, print and radio ads.

Insect Control: a mapping and larval sampling program to monitor for the development of Culex mosquitoes and a contingency plan for mosquito control measures (larviciding and adulticiding) that may be appropriate to address the risk to human health from WNv.

Funding for the WNv 2003 program will include:

• $2.2 million to deliver this summer’s WNv program including a provincial co-ordination office, regional response teams and the surveillance, public education and lab components; and
• up to $3.6 million for a cost-shared (75 per cent provincial and 25 per cent municipal) mosquito control program of larviciding and/or adulticiding.

"The City of Winnipeg is pleased to be partnering with the province of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in ensuring a proactive and comprehensive response to the threat of West Nile virus," said Winnipeg City Councillor Jenny Gerbasi. "As well as the plan for West Nile virus, the city’s Blueprint for Action will propose enhanced mosquito control strategies for 2003. The city continues to integrate additional environmentally sensitive approaches in its plans."

"The Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) appreciates the province’s commitment to working with Manitoba’s municipalities on this initiative," said AMM President Stu Briese. "We will continue to assist the province in protecting our communities."

"Good prevention is good public policy and the strategy we’re announcing today gives us a leg up in not only dealing with West Nile virus, should it return, but with other public health threats that confront the province," said Chomiak. "The government is addressing this issue to ensure we are taking all reasonable steps to protect the health of Manitobans."

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BACKGROUNDER.

The Manitoba government has announced a comprehensive West Nile virus strategy. The plan includes surveillance, source reduction, personal protection and insect control to support the components of the program. Outlined below are further details of each component of the plan.

Should start with corvid surveillance – it will precede larval sampling.

• Larval surveillance involves taking samples of mosquito larvae from permanent or semi-permanent water and identifying mosquito larvae of the types that are suspected to carry WNv.
• Larval surveillance:
• determines if WNv carrying mosquitoes are present in a given location;
• establishes best times for application of larval control measures; and
• helps to evaluate the effectiveness of control measures.
• Larval surveillance will be carried out by mapping and surveillance teams.

• Reintroduction of WNv by migrating birds returning to Manitoba is the main way the virus is expected to re-emerge in 2003.
• Dead corvid surveillance provides a sensitive early indicator system for the presence of WNv in local mosquitoes and the extent of its geographic spread.
• As in 2002, the general public will be asked to report to Health Links fresh dead corvids (crows, blue jays, ravens, magpies and gray jays) for laboratory testing for WNv.
• A system for picking up appropriate dead bird specimens will be in place by early May.

• As Culex mosquitoes are the direct source of WNv infection for humans, it is important to establish baseline mosquito surveillance in southern Manitoba at selected sites. This provides important information over the span of the season regarding where WNv carrying mosquitoes predominate, trends in population growth or decline as well as providing samples for testing.
• As with the mapping and bird surveillance components, the mosquito surveillance program component will be centrally co-ordinated and regionally implemented.
• Decisions regarding where and when to set traps will be made by the chief medical officer of health and the provincial entomologist in conjunction with the municipalities and the regional response teams.
• Personnel to manage the traps will be hired by Manitoba Health and will receive their direction from the provincial medical entomologist for health. Personnel will work locally with the regional response teams, which will have municipal representation.
• Mosquito and other surveillance information will be used to assess risk to human health and make decisions about appropriate responses to address this risk.

• WNv is a reportable disease under the Public Health Act. As such, medical practitioners around the province have been instructed to report cases of meningo-encephalitis and other serious manifestations of WNv disease to Manitoba Health.
• Health practitioners across the province will receive information to assist in the recognition, diagnosis and reporting of WNv to Manitoba Health.
• Laboratory capacity for centralized provincial human testing at Cadham Provincial Laboratory is being enhanced.
• Strong partnerships with the National Microbiology Laboratory have been established.
• Manitoba Health and Canadian Blood Services are collaborating to promote the safety of the blood supply.
• An expanded public education campaign will focus on the importance of personal protection measures to reduce exposure to mosquitoes through the use of repellents and protective clothing that is loose-fitting, long-sleeved and light colored ("the three Ls").
• Pamphlets and posters providing information on WNv will be distributed
• The Manitoba government’s West Nile virus Web site at http://www.gov.mb.ca will be updated regularly with the latest information on WNv.
• WNv media bulletins will be distributed on a regular basis.
• Health Links will continue to be the provincial number to report dead corvids (crows) and to ask questions about WNv. In Winnipeg, the phone number is 788-8200. Outside Winnipeg, call toll-free 1-888-315-9257.
• Regular WNv updates will be provided to public health, regional health authorities, municipalities, physicians, health care providers, veterinarians, wildlife groups and government departments.

• Mapping is important in identifying, describing and keeping a central inventory of potential Culex mosquito breeding sites, for planning and response purposes. Mapping is normally a prerequisite for larviciding as it provides accurate targeting of mosquito control efforts.
• Mapping and larval sampling site selection will be prioritized by a number of considerations including: standing water that is permanent or semi-permanent, that contains organic material, is within two kilometres of dense human populations and is accessible to control measures. This would include tire recycling depots, waste disposal grounds, grassland, pond edges, non-flowing creeks or lagoons.
• Eight mapping teams will do targeted mapping of selected priority sites in southern Manitoba between May 1 and Aug. 31. The provincial health co-ordination office in conjunction with municipalities and regional response teams will determine the priority of sites.

• Cost-shared mosquito control measures which will be considered are larviciding and adulticiding. (Larviciding is the application of insecticide products to standing water in order to kill mosquitoes during the larval stage of a mosquito’s life cycle. Adulticiding is the application of chemical from either the ground or air to kill adult mosquitoes).
• Mosquito control measures that are requested by municipalities and deemed appropriate by the provincial government will be cost-shared 75 per cent by the provincial government and 25 per cent by the municipal government.
• The process for submitting applications for cost-shared mosquito control measures in response to WNv, and the factors that Public Health will consider in making these recommendations, will be made public on the government Web site by May 1.

• A multi-departmental approach has been taken to the WNv strategy with Manitoba Health having the lead.
• To address WNv, Manitoba Health is building an infrastructure and implementing a program which will support both central government requirements for policy and content expertise, and regional capacity to operationalize or support program components such as bird, horse and mosquito surveillance, mosquito control and communications activities.
• The program is founded on regional response teams, which will co-ordinate and implement the WNv program in the field. The recommendation is that the teams:
• be organized according to five geographic boundaries;
• have representation from AMM districts, the medical officer of health, regional health authority, Manitoba Agriculture, Conservation, Intergovernmental Affairs and First Nation communities; and
• work closely with personnel who will be responsible for regional program activities and operations.
• Central co-ordination staff will provide regional response teams support, expertise, guidance and training on the operation of the different components of the WNv program.
• The infrastructure will promote a rational and consistent approach throughout the province, and is predicated upon public health approaches for any emerging disease.