It's the mosquito, nothing else!

Peter Knight, chief executive officer of the National Environment and Planning Agency, has reiterated that last year's crippling chikungunya epidemic which swept across the island and infected thousands of Jamaicans was mosquito-borne and not airborne, a view still widely held.

Knight, who was among several guests at a Gleaner Editors' Forum with representatives from the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change yesterday, was addressing the issue of climate change and its impact on health.

"People need to understand that it is not an airborne virus. It is not [any] breeze blow on them. It is caused from the bite of a mosquito. It cannot be from anything else," he stated.

Continuing, Knight added: "That chik-V phenomenon raised a number of issues, and remember, there is a climate-change impact on all of that. The culture and mindset of persons have to be changed. One of the reasons chik-V got more explosive is because of people's thinking."