Hubballi: The Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) health department will use guppy fish, which eats mosquito larvae, to limit the spread of vector-borne diseases.
The department has identified 70 drains and 23 permanent water bodies where it will release guppy fish on Wednesday.
This is the first time that an urban civic authority is using guppy fish to check dengue, chikungunya and other vector-borne diseases that are on the rise.
T P Manjunath, the district entomologist of Dharwad, said the initiative of using guppy fish was of Dr. Sridhar Dandappanavar of the HDMC health department in HDMC.
“The fish grows only up to 2 cm and multiplies in 2 to 3 months. “The method of using guppy fish to minimize the number of mosquitoes is a biological method, without harming the environment we can control mosquito breeding,” he said.
He also added that when malaria broke out in Kolar in the 1990s, guppy fish were used to control the mosquitoes.
Dandappanavar said: “To eradicate the mosquito menace in the twin cities, I took up the issue of using guppy fish to control mosquitoes and discussed it with the HDMC commissioner who approved the plan.”
On Wednesday, the fish will be released in all the identified drains and permanent water bodies.
According to sources, the health department is breeding guppy fish in the natural hatchery in Annigeri where large quantities of the fish are found.
Arrangements have been made to transport the fish from Annigeri in barrels to Hubballi city, the sources said.
