Dengue in parts of the world is fatal. In Singapore they have a special exercise called Carpet Combing, supported by the National Environment Agency (NEA). Marcel went on one of those exercises with the volunteers and workers of the N.E.A. They checked all of Singapore in 7 weeks.  The training including the briefing took 1 and a half hours. There are many high potential places for the dengue mosquito to breed its larvae e.g. plant leaves (hollow leaves), plates under plant pots, fire hose reel cupboards, buckets, pots, pans, litter for example cans, gully traps and scupper drains. If the volunteers or workers find one of these things they test the water with test tubes to see if there is any larvae inside. If there are larvae or it is a potential habitat, they write it down on a piece of paper and they help the residents living there to turn over the plates etc… and keep them properly and dry. If they can’t turn over the object or if it’s too heavy they put a special substance in called insecticide granules.

Before the larvae become a full-grown mosquito, they go through 4 stages. The first and second stages are hard to see (just like a grain of salt in a bucket of water). The third stage it is a little bit bigger. The final stage (stage four) they look like a tiny caterpillar. The first and second stages are not such a high potential, so they leave the first and second stage larvae alone. The third and fourth stages are more dangerous to us so they remove them with the test tubes. The larvae usually like to live at the sides of the buckets, pots and cans. They always live in water and without water they cannot breed.