SHAH ALAM, July 26 - The Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) yesterday held an appreciation ceremony for the city’s most active Search and Destroy Aedes Ranger (SEDAR) teams in conjunction with ASEAN Dengue Day.
The SEDAR initiative, introduced by MBPJ in 2014, has grown into one of the council’s flagship community-based dengue prevention programmes, the council said in a Facebook post yesterday.
Petaling Jaya Mayor Dato’ Mohamad Zahri Samingon, in officiating the event themed “Molding Proactive Communities, Building Dengue-Free Cities” at Crystal Crown Hotel, said: “Society should practise a culture of prevention by spending at least 10 minutes a week checking residential areas and destroying Aedes mosquito breeding grounds.”
“To date, as many as 173 SEDAR groups have been established all over Petaling Jaya involving residential areas, construction sites and education institutions,” MBPJ said in the post.
At the ceremony, the council presented awards to 52 of the city’s most active SEDAR groups in recognition of their commitment and dedication to preventing dengue in their respective communities.
“This programme also gathers 29 representatives of Neighbourhood Orders and Residents’ Association (RAs) and features partnerships with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) experts, the Petaling District Health Office, Selangor Dengue Icon, and strategic partner KAO Malaysia to strengthen awareness and community action in combating dengue,” it said.
MBPJ expressed hope that continued collaborations would foster a caring community, strengthen the spirit of volunteerism and teamwork, and support Petaling Jaya’s vision of becoming clean, safe, prosperous and dengue free.
