The fishing season commences on August 1 after the 61-day ban on mechanized fishing comes to an end. Most of those who work on trawlers are migrants who come from Bihar, Odisha and Jarkhand. Cutbona jetty itself has about 5000 migrants descending at the start of the fishing season. The question that arises is whether all the migrants will be screened by the officials of the Health department. Goa has recently reported several cases of dengue fever. Hence it becomes all the more important to screen migrant labourers who could be carriers of these parasites. They could be coming from villages in other States where there is an endemic of dengue and other vector-borne diseases. Given the number of cases of dengue fever reported in Goa, it seems absolutely necessary to screen the migrants who will be reporting at the various fishing jetties in the State at the respective health centers for various vector-borne and water-borne diseases in order to arrest the spread of the diseases. We do not want to end up with an endemic in the State and blame it on the migrants. Prevention they say is better than cure.
Screen migrant workers
