In Disease prevention and control

Mosquito prevention in workplaces, hotels and schools

Under the Workplace Health and Safety Act, employers have a responsibility to provide a safe work environment for their employees. Reduce the risk of mosquito borne disease in your workplace by:

making sure any outside containers capable of storing water are emptied regularly
protecting your workers from mosquito bites by providing insect repellent
providing staff with information about how to avoid mosquito bites.

Download a quick reference guide for recognising potential breeding sites around the workplace (PDF 1.52MB)

Common potential breeding sites in commercial, industrial or school sites

Rainwater tanks

Under the Public Health Act 2005, all new rainwater tanks sold in Queensland must have suitable measures to prevent mosquitoes breeding in the tank. This involves ensuring every opening of the tank has flap valves or has mosquito-proof screens of brass, copper, aluminium or stainless steel gauze, with a mesh size of no more than 1mm aperture mesh.

Find out how to keep your tank safe (PDF, 818KB)

Drain sumps

Drain sumps, inlet pits and storm water pits are all potential breeding sites that can produce extremely high numbers of mosquitoes when water pools in the bottom of the pit.

This can be solved in a number of ways:

fill in the lower part of the pit with concrete or sand
put a fine mesh over the grate to reduce the amount of litter that can enter
keep pits clear of debris that stops water flow
have pest controllers treat drain sumps during routine pest treatment.

Drain sumps pose a particular threat as a likely breeding ground for dengue mosquitoes.

In locations where dengue is common, such as northern Queensland, inlet pits can be without a sump and be self-draining.

This is an amendment to the Australian/New Zealand Standards Plumbing and Drainage - Refer to the AS/NZS 3500.3:2003: Plumbing and Drainage-Storm water Drainage Section 5.3.3.6.

Drain sump pits can be a significant mosquito breeding site

High risk areas for the spread of dengue, in locations where the dengue mosquito is present

Hotels and hostels

Hotels and hostels are often the first place people go when arriving from overseas. This also means they are the first place someone arriving from a dengue affected country with dengue fever is likely to go. That is why it is extremely important dengue mosquitoes are not present on your premises.

All it takes is one mosquito to bite an infected guest and it could pass dengue on to other guests, staff, and the wider community.

Schools

Schools, universities and TAFE colleges can have lots of places for dengue mosquitoes to breed. With the number of people coming to and from campus each day a dengue mosquito carrying the virus can spread dengue fever very quickly, to many people.

This is why it is essential that schools, universities and TAFE colleges check around their campus every week and remove or treat any containers capable of holding water and over the summer holiday period, consider using a residual insecticide to reduce dengue breeding.

Roof guttering should be cleared of any debris before the break and again before school returns.

More information

Read more about the dengue virus, fever and the dengue mosquito.

Last updated: 20 June 2018