Sao Paulo, April 27 (EFE-RHC) Uniformed and armed with insect repellent, 50 soldiers patrol Brazil’s largest city to fight the enemy: the dengue-carrying mosquito responsible for infecting 460,500 people in the country so far this year.

The presence of soldiers, each paired with a health inspector, aims to create trust among the population as they go about the work of inspection and raising awareness that the Sao Paulo municipal government has organized to combat the epidemic.

“City hall called on us because not everyone opens their doors to health inspectors,” army spokesman Col. Ricardo Carmona said, explaining that the military will remain part of the war on mosquitoes for another month.

Sao Paulo city hall asked the army to help eliminate breeding grounds of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the disease, as the number of cases increased in Brazil’s most populated metropolitan area from 3,183 in the first quarter of 2014 to 8,063 in the same period of 2015, according to Health Ministry figures.

With map in hand, soldier and inspector visit homes door to door looking for any stagnant pools of water, eliminating larvae and informing residents about the measures they should take to avoid creating breeding grounds for the insect.

The procedures carried out by the southeastern command of the Brazilian army include the distribution of information about household hygiene.