Yvonne Webb

Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis has told new­ly-elect­ed coun­cil­lors to take charge and en­sure dengue does not take over the coun­try.

The min­is­ter said so dur­ing a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, held with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion. Five oth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ters–Su­ruj Ram­bachan, Win­ston Pe­ters, Rudy Mooni­lal and Prakash Ra­mad­har–showed up to give Shar­ma sup­port.

Bap­tiste-Cor­nelis told the coun­cil­lors: "You all know me right...Well, I am go­ing to get down to brass and knuck­les. "You were all busy walk­ing around (dur­ing the cam­paign)...I am sure all of you are very fit now, you are very healthy, you have col­lect­ed da­ta of all the places that need to be clean be­cause you know that dengue is out there," she said.

She ad­vised them to go out and iden­ti­fy the ar­eas which need­ed to be cleaned. "You have to go out there and do the work and en­sure dengue does not take over this coun­try," she said. " It is no longer on­ly the Min­istry of Health." She said lo­cal bod­ies had to get their equip­ment, re­cruit and train staff so they would no longer have to call her min­istry to spray dif­fer­ent places.