The Paphos municipality is taking precautionary measures to combat mosquitoes, municipal health officer Christos Christou said on Friday.

Asked by the Cyprus News Agency about the measures being taken following the detection of a West Nile virus case in Nicosia, Christou said addressing the problem could not merely be limited to reacting post fact.

“Mosquitoes and their new species are here to stay,” he said, affirming that the goal was to reduce the mosquito population as much as possible while protecting residents.

He explained that the municipality’s strategy rests on two main pillars, with an organised programme of house-to-house checks carried out daily in collaboration with the state health services organisation (Okypy).

Teams of two or three trained health workers shall visit residential properties and provide information sheets with simple instructions, helping people to identify and eliminate potential breeding sites, with particular emphasis placed on stagnant water.

A second team shall focus on combating the mosquitoes themselves in river beds and ponds where stagnant water forms.

Christou said public complaints and reports remain vital, with every complaint investigated and recorded to help identify outbreaks.

He assured that although mosquitoes are present in large numbers within municipal boundaries, they are being effectively addressed, with complaints having decreased year on year.

“This means that the measures taken are actually effective,” he said, though he stressed that “without the help of the public, we will not have the results we expect.”

Asked whether he was concerned following the first confirmed case, Christou said his worry preceded such reports.

“Ever since the presence of a new species of mosquito was detected in Cyprus about three years ago, we have been on heightened alert,” he said, recalling that Cyprus had previously recorded significant numbers of mosquito-borne disease cases.

Christou said the issue went beyond any single municipality. “It concerns everyone,” he said, calling for a national plan, while urging caution among those travelling abroad to destinations where such diseases remain endemic.

His comments follow confirmation that a 74-year-old man tested positive for West Nile virus and remains in the intensive care unit at the Nicosia general hospital.

Okypy spokesman Charalambos Charliaou said the patient had no recent travel history and had been hospitalised since the Wednesday last week, later developing encephalitis.

Charliaou denied media reports that there had been two additional cases at the hospital last month, explaining that those cases concerned dengue fever rather than West Nile virus.